A Stronger Circle
by 247Lyricism
Summary: After their training at Winding Circle is complete, the four children go their separate ways. However, when they return a few years later, our favorite quartet must grow into adults in the midst of blossoming romances and trouble brewing with the earth.
1. Prologue

The sky was as bright as the tears shining in the eyes of the four youngsters outside the old cottage. Bags in each of their arms, the children sighed wistfully, remembering all that they had cherished in this building. Behind them, temples and storehouses, bunks and greenhouses, blacksmith quarters, shores, woods, and a giant tower at the center of a winding road stood. This place, as large as it seemed, had been home to the children for as long as they could remember. But now, it was time to move on.

  
"I'm going to miss this place," said one of the girls, her blondish hair picking up teardrops from her cheeks. 

  
"You know," said a darker-skinned girl, tapping her staff against the stone walkway on which she stood. "At first, we didn't really want to stay here. And now, we just don't want to leave. It's sort of funny, don't you think?"

  
"I don't know. That sort of sad humor is so broad," whispered a girl with curly red hair. She reached a finger behind her thick glasses to rub her eyes. "But you're right, about wanting to go and then changing our minds."

  
The lone boy in the group shook his head. "You're all a bunch of saps," he muttered, tugging on the edge of his shirt sleeve. 

"Knock it off, Briar. Your eyes are as wet as the rest of ours," snapped the blonde. The boy looked away. _Maybe the girls are right,_ he thought, _but I won't ever admit that to their faces._

  
Two women, hankerchiefs in hand, and a tall man came out of the cottage. They approached the children. "It's time," said the dark woman, smiling with tears in her eyes.

  
"This is it, I suppose," said the man, fighting to keep his composure. He got down on a knee in front of them so that he was closer to their eye level. "Before you leave, I ... I just wanted to tell you how very proud I am of you. The gods have blessed you to be extremely gifted and talented. Use yourselves to the best of your abilities, and work to develop your powers. I'd hate to see such tremendous gifts as yours go to waste, though I trust none of you would let that happen." He smiled faintly. Niklaren Goldeye was not one for speeches! "The best of luck to all of you."

  
Touched by the rare compliments from their master, the children smiled and sniffled. The man was flooded with hugs. "Don't you dare think we'd forget about you, Niko. You can't lose us that easily," said the girl with the staff. 

  
The red-headed woman behind Niko came right up to the boy, who blinked at her with wide eyes. She looked down at him, touching his cheek gently. "I'll be thinking about you," she whispered, her eyes misting. 

  
The boy, Briar, blinked at her again, shocked at her display of affection. The woman sniffed and shook it off. "You stay out of trouble, understand?" she said harshly, trying to sound tough. She didn't want anyone, especially Briar, thinking that she'd gone soft. He had not missed the cracking in her voice, though. Briar smiled and put an arm around her.

  
"I wouldn't dare get into any more messes," he said reassuringly. 

  
"'More messes'? Green Man knows if that's possible, to get into more messes than you've already done," Rosethorn said, feeling more like herself.

  
The other woman, on the other hand, had no problem expressing her true feelings. She immediately began sobbing, hugging and kissing all of the children. "Don't cry so, Lark," cooed the blonde, patting her teacher's back as they embraced. "I'm not going forever." 

  
"I know," sniffed Lark as she wiped her eyes. 

  
The redheaded girl, Tris, said in consolation to Lark, "We'll visit you soon, we promise. Or, at least I do." She paused. "You'll be here, right?"

  
"Of course," said Lark. "We all will be, unless Niko gets called away by something else. I'm going to be helping with the selling and producing of some temple goods, such as cloth, yarn, ointments, herbs, and the like, along with Rosethorn. You know – nothing so exciting as you."

  
"Well, we'll drop by, then, sometime," Sandry assured Lark.

  
She paused, and dug into her pocket, producing a cord, woven into a circle, with four even lumps. "What should we do with this? I don't want to hog it to myself," said Sandry.

  
"Keep it," said Briar, shoving a hand into his pocket. "You've done a fine job keeping tabs on our circle so far." Little Bear hopped at his feet, demanding attention. Sadly, Briar patted the large white dog. 

  
Sandry smiled and placed it back into her pocket. Sighing, looking at Niko, she asked, "Shall we make our way to the gate?" Niko nodded. The children bade their final farewells to Lark and Rosethorn, who waved from outside the cottage gate with smiling, tearful faces. 

  
The children, escorted by Niko, headed to the gates at the edge of the temple-city, where they would go their separate ways. Daja, the dark-skinned girl, was going to remain with her master, Frostpine. He and his assistant Kirel were traveling to the city of Hajra in Sotat, where they would be constructing a huge new city gate, made entirely of different types of metal. Daja was going  
with them. She knew that it was a great challenge; she couldn't wait. 

  
Sandry was returning to her uncle's, Duke Vedris, to help to take care of his lands. She was planning on keeping up her weaving, however, and making some interesting clothes - perhaps a shirt or cloak, made with magic, able to protect the wearer? She wasn't sure if it could be done, but she wanted to try. 

Tris was going to a mage-school, called Growing Circle Temple, a-ways from Winding Circle (near Ninver) to develop her talents further. Niko had insisted on it, saying that she had great possibilities awaiting her if she learned more self-control and intricate spells at this center, which specialized in helping to develop strong mages. 

Briar was going to a center in the Stepping Stone Islands, where the Earth-dedicates had been breeding different types of plants in order to produce different medicinal properties in them. It sounded like fun to Briar. After working during the plague, he'd found working in such a field interesting. 

  
Now, it was Sandry's turn to sob, as Lark had. She began to bawl, smothering the others in hugs. Her emotional state began to rub off on Daja and Tris, and even Briar, who in turn started to cry and hug one another. 

  
Sandry and Daja pressed their bodies against each other as they embraced, Sandry wailing uncontrollably. "What will I do without you, Daja?" she cried.

  
"Sandry, you act like this is the end of the world. Remember, we're always going to be friends, and we're going to keep in contact, so don't cry so." Daja's words would have been more reassuring had her facial expressions not given away her true sadness - her cheeks were wet, her eyes red, and her lips in a sad frown.

  
Sandry reached over to hug Tris close to her, who sniffled and rubbed her nose. "And Tris! I'm going to miss you so, Tris!" lamented Sandry, burying her face in Tris' shirt. 

  
"I've still got that embroidered cloth you gave me, Sandry. You know…with the birds on it," Tris began, but she stopped to compose herself. _It's not like me to get emotional, thought Tris as she rubbed her eyes again, _but this is too much. Whether I like it or not, these people are my friends.__

  
Meanwhile, Daja approached Briar. "Well, 'kid,'" she joked, using the thief-cant that Briar had taught her, "I guess this is it. Briar smiled and held out a hand to shake with her. Daja pushed his hand aside and hugged him, to Briar's shock. He put an arm around her back. "Good luck, Daja," he murmured, trying to blink back wetness in his eyes.

  
It was Briar's turn to be attacked by Sandry. She threw two arms around his shoulders and began to wail into his shirt, too. "It's going to be so different without you," she cried.

  
Briar rolled his eyes. "Girls," he muttered.

   
Sandry gripped his shoulders and looked into his face. "Don't tell me that the thought of leaving doesn't make you sad," she asked.

  
"Of course it does. I just hide it better than you do," he said, grinning and squeezing her around the shoulders. 

  
Daja simultaneously came to Tris and put an arm around her shoulders. "Write to me, merchant girl," she said with a smile, her teeth flashing in her face. Tris grinned back and hugged her. "And you had best keep up your end of the deal and write me back at Growing Circle, hear me?" They released each other. 

  
Finally, Briar and Tris had to bid their farewells. "Time to go, Coppercurls," he said, reaching out to tug on a loose curl popping out from Tris' headband. Tris caught his hand by her face an squeezed it, saying, "Not forever, though." She grinned at him and tickled his palm, feeling the scars that briars had left there. Briar laughed, and tears came to his eyes.

  
The gate loomed in front of them. Suddenly, they heard a click-clicking noise of a cart. "Tris," said Niko, "that's your means of transportation to Growing Circle."

  
Tris sighed, letting go of Briar's hand, and picked up her bag. "So long, everyone," she said, waving to them. 

  
"Good luck, Tris!" cried Sandry, waving her hankerchief dramatically.

  
"We'll miss you!" said Daja, waving, twirling her staff in the other hand.

  
Briar added on, "Bye, Tris!" 

  
"Have fun!" Niko said.

  
Tris wiped her streaming eyes. Winding Circle was the one place that she'd ever been really accepted. Now, it was her time to go, and she was scared witless.  _Without these people, where would I be?_ she thought. 

  
"Thanks, everyone," she said. "Bye!" Looking at them backwards as she climbed into the card, she disappeared behind the partition and was gone.

  
"Lady Sandrilene?" asked the guard at the gate. He pointed to a pack of horses and a tall, lean man on a black mare. "Your uncle, the duke, has come to escort you back to your home," the guard explained. 

  
Sandry picked up her bags and dabbed her eyes with a hankerchief while sobbing uncontrollably. "Goodbye, Niko, Briar, Daja," she cried, sniffling. "I'll miss you! But... I'll come back! I promise!" 

  
"Bye, Sandry!" said Briar.

  
"Have fun, Sandry!" cried Daja.

  
Niko waved and called to her, "Good luck!"

  
Sandry sniffled. _My best friends... I wish I didn't have to leave them, but we've each got something we've been called to do, something we have to each do that, of course, requires us to each go to opposite sides of the world. It isn't fair!_ Sandry thought passionately. 

She lugged her large bag over to the packhorses, waving with a spare hand, staring back with teary eyes. "I wish I didn't have to see everyone go with a frown on their faces," said Daja. I wanted to have my final memory of them be a happy one."

  
Briar gulped as another cart, this one with three other people in the back, pulled up. "Looks like your cart, Briar," said Niko.

  
"Aye," said the man driving the cart. "I'm heading off to the shore, to the docks." From the docks, Briar was going to take a boat to the Stepping Stone Islands, where he would begin his work. "Is that Briar Moss there?" the driver asked, pointing.

  
"That he is," said Niko. "Farewell, Briar."

  
"Good luck, Briar Moss," said Daja, leaning on her staff.

  
Briar nodded and rubbed his eyes. _I'm not sure 'bout this anymore. What if something goes wrong, and I end up hating it? What if it's not all it's cracked up to be?_ he thought nervously. _Those girls! They sure turned me into a sap. _

  
He waved goodbye and made his way into the back of the cart, where the other people nodded a hello. The cart wheeled away.

  
"That's all," said Daja softly. "And I'm heading off tomorrow." She sighed. "I better head off to Frostpine's place, Niko. And I'm going to bed early. I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow." Niko nodded his agreement, and they went to the smith-mage's home.  
  
---   
  
Hello, hello. I hope that everyone has enjoyed the prologue of "A Stronger Circle." I would like to comment that this is the reviewed version. And I hate it. It sounds so terribly childish…well. Anyway. 

  
DISCLAIMER: None of the used characters, places, and related titles belong to me. Duh. They are all property of Tamora Pierce and Scholastic Inc., 1997.  
  
Please e-mail me at bluwyndfaerie@hotmail.com or review. Your comments are greatly appreciated.   
  
  



	2. Chapter 1

_Written from Daja Kisubo, in the city of __Hajra__ to Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, in the city of _Summersea__:_  
  
So, we've been very busy these last few weeks. Actually, we've been busy since we've gotten here. The Hajran emperor wants this city gate to be gorgeous. The old one was just plain wood, basically. He wants the new one to be elaborate, of twisted metal in gold and silver and copper and iron, in graceful designs. He's not making us pay for the supplies, of course, but I can imagine that this is going to be one expensive city door. _

I suppose he could probably put all that money to extra use. If he's got so much to make a beautiful city door, I can think of much more important things to use it for. As far as I understand, Briar's left a few of his thief-friends here. The Hajran emperor might've rooted them out using some of that money, or cleaned up the city, or something. But, no, he's making a city door. I'm not going to tell him what to do, though. He's a frightening-looking man.

  
Kirel and Frostpine and I are getting closer to getting the door done, though I expect we've still got weeks and weeks ahead of us. We've gotten one of the doorframes done and the artwork started on it, and the other doorframe is partially finished. It's so hard because of the size of it. You can't bring it into the shop as a whole. You have to make the frame in bits and pieces and then go outside to the rest of the doorframe and attach the pieces out there, where there's room to do so. And so you have to build a fire outside, and bring the equipment outside, too....it's almost like we have two shops, one inside and one outside. 

  
We made the frame from iron and copper, melted together and twisted together around each other. The frame's beams are quite thick. They weren't that hard to do. With our metal-magic, Frostpine and I were able to twist the metals together without heating them too much. Copper and iron like  
each other enough. But then, we had to attach beams between the rectangular poles of the frame. The metal beams we had to actually melt down a lot and attach, which proved rather difficult with the door frames outside. Now we're working on the design, which is fun, but we have to do it fully by hand.

  
How are things in Summersea? Tell your uncle hello from Frostpine, myself, and Kirel. Hope you're having fun. I miss you.   
  
---

  
_From Tris Chandler, __Growing Circle__ _Temple___, near Ninver, to Briar Moss, Earth-Temple, __Stepping__Stone__Islands_:_  
  
It sounds like you're being kept busy. And enjoying your work, too. That's good. I'd hate for you to be bored. _

  
I can tell you I'm sure not bored. The masters here keep me so busy I'm scared I'll go crazy and my head will explode. I'm not saying I'm not glad I came here. It's a great experience - I'm learning so much – how to concentrate my power, how to use it for more specific things, different spells, charms, and the like. But it's _work_. We don't get the long break time here like at Discipline. It's constant study, except for a free hour before lights-out. They're much stricter here with that sort of thing than Lark and Rosethorn were. 

  
The Temple's beautiful, though not quite up to snuff with Winding Circle, of course. The libraries aren't as good, either, but I still really like the place. I haven't had hardly any time to go around exploring, but it's a comfortable home. Now I'm in a dormitory with all the other girls, and I share my room, which I don't like as much as having my own. The girls are nosy. They ask questions about my books, and my clothes, and my magic, and this and that. If they ask me one more question I'm going to scream. They just have to know everything. They don't laugh at me, though. Not so much, anyway. 

The best thing about this, though, is the fact that I'm rather near Stone Circle Temple, where Niko found me. The people there thought I was nuts, possessed, had a ghost living in me, or some trash like that. It felt great to go back there and prove them wrong. It sounds cruel, but after all _they_ did, I figured a little correcting them wouldn't hurt their pride, not too much anyway. 

  
I wish that our ties to each other - our mental link - was still strong, but there's far too much distance between the four of us for it to work. With me in Ninver, you in the Stepping Stone Islands, Sandry in Summersea, and Daja in Hajra, we're all on very different sides of the Pebbled Sea. If any of you could contact each other, I bet it'd be you and Daja - you are the closest to each other, distance-wise - but I bet you've already tried. 

  
It's strange. Before we were all such in easy access to one another, but now we can't even use our mind-link. It's sad. I feel lonely, without being able to talk to everyone. Yes, even you, thief-boy.  
  
---  
_  
From Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, in the city of __Summersea__, to Tris Chandler, __Growing Circle__ _Temple___, near Ninver:  
  
I find myself with little to do at the castle. Even though Duke Vedris really wants me to stay around the castle, he knows that he can't cage me here. I've wandered into the city, looking through the  
market, alone. (Perhaps it's dangerous not to go with someone, but I think I'd be able to work my way out of a tough spot.) _

I met this woman - her name is Adrienna - and she was selling some articles of clothing. Beautiful, I tell you, just beautiful - skirts and dresses, cloaks and capes, breeches, cotton pullovers - and I thought they were overly expensive, even though they are very nice. The woman told me they were expensive because they were made with magic. Used to protect the wearer from rain and weather, protect against illness and to guarantee good health. I thought it was amazing, just absolutely  
astonishing. Upon learning that I was a thread-mage, Adrienna wanted to teach me how to do it, too. That's my newest project - making a cloak sealed by magic, possibly one to protect from illness. I promise once I get good enough at it, I'm going to make one for you, Daja, and Briar. Just don't grow much without telling me, or I'll make them all the wrong size. 

  
How the studying going? I hope it's not as boring as it _sounds. Sorry, Tris, but more studying doesn't sound to me like a piece of cake. I'm glad that I'm not constantly working, but I must say that it has its cons over sitting bored in the castle here. My uncle might be able to entertain noble adults, but certainly not noble children! _

  
Have you heard from either Daja or Briar? The last time I talked to Daja she was well, but that was a while ago. And since Briar's letters have to go by boat, they take a while. Fine for him to go to an _island! _

  
Take care of yourself, Tris. Best of luck with your studies. I hope we get to talk soon. Write back. I'll be here at the castle. Love you.  
  
---  
  
_From Briar Moss, Earth-temple, Stepping Stone Islands, to Daja Kisubo, city of __Hajra__:_  
  
Lucky you. You get to see my wonderful old home. I'm glad I'm not you. I'd hate to have to go back there. My memories there aren't worth remembering. 

  
I'm having a fine time. Working here's fascinating. Right now, we're breeding two plants used in two herbal teas - one for stomach aches, one for sore throats - to see if we can get one plant that does both. Bet you didn't know that you could breed plants, eh? Just like you do animals. There's girl plants and boy plants. You have to remove the pollen from the stamens on the flowers and put it into the center of the flower, into the ovary. Eventually in the center of the flower a seed is formed. 

It _sounds_ more complicated than it is, though it's not easy either. Sometimes it won't work. And sometimes when you breed them, the plant that comes out is deformed, and doesn't do what you want it to do. And the worst is the waiting. You have to wait for the seed to form, and you wait for it to grow, an' then you have to test out the new flower. It really is fun work, though. 

Everyone's real nice, but the cook here won't give out free treats like Dedicate Gorse. Rosethorn's come by, once, just to drop off something to the Dedicate Superior at the Temple,  but she also kind of wanted to come and say hi to me and see how I was doing. She worries about all of us. She acts like we're her ugly ducklings. 

  
I can't contact anyone through the mind-link. Can you? Seems we're too far away to talk through it. Or maybe it's got something to do with the fact that the thread-circle's with Sandry and not all of us? I hope she's taking care of it, but knowing her she won't lose it. 

  
Sorry this took so long to write back. But I haven't got much time to write, and it takes me a while to write a long letter like this. You'd best thank Tris for teaching me to write at all. Else I'd never be in contact with _anyone._

  
Has it really been a whole year since we left Winding Circle? Say hello to Kirel and Frostpine for me. Best of luck with the door.

  
Maybe we all could, you know, get together sometime, for a visit. I'd like that.  
  
---  
  
_From Daja Kisubo, Hajra, in Sotat, to Tris Chandler, __Growing Circle__Temple__, Ninver:  
  
So we're done the doors - finally! It took nearly forever, but I'm so proud of it. There are gold, copper, iron, and silver ribbons, twisted towards a center globe of many metals, melted down and cooled to look sort of like a colored pool, of metal. The colored beams wind up and down the doorway, around each other only to split off every which way. It's in a pattern though, so it isn't messy. This design is on both doors, the two mirror images of the other. It's very nice. _

  
When I see the doors, I keep thinking of you and me and Sandry and Briar, and our thread circle. I can see it in our mind, and how Sandry pulled a thread into it from each of us. I can see each of the colored metals - copper, iron, silver, and gold - as one of us, though I'm not sure which is which of us. 

  
Now, Frostpine says that the emperor here wants us to do another different set of doors at the other end of the city. Next thing you know, I'll be Daja the City-Door-Maker, good for nothing but to make doorframes until I die. 

  
I hear your studies are going well enough. Sandry wrote me and said you've learned some interesting spells. You'll have to show me the next time we meet. Hopefully that will be soon.

  
Frostpine has been introducing me to some new, rarer types of metal as we've been working, since I'm discussing studying. He refuses either Kirel or I to break from studying from the books he gives to us. I think he wants us to study so much that we breathe the names of metals and dream of them in our sleep.

  
I'm not working on anything new magically though. Frostpine doesn't want to distract me from my work with the doors too much. 

  
As soon as these next doors are done - and, if, Trader Koma forbid, we aren't assigned another set of doors - you, me, Briar, and Sandry must get together. I love Frostpine and Kirel, but my heart aches to be with everyone else, too.  
  
---  
  
_From Briar Moss, Earth-temple, Stepping Stone Islands, to Dedicate Rosethorn, __Winding Circle__ _Temple___, Emelan:  
  
Is Discipline lonely without us to keep it lively? _

  
Are Lark and Niko there at Winding Circle, too? Can you tell them that I said hello? 

  
We work in a greenhouse here, too, just like Crane does. I can almost hear you blowing steam from here, Rosethorn. Don't call me a traitor. Wasn't my idea to work in a greenhouse, but that's what the Dedicate Superior here says we have to do. I'm not breeding any plants anymore myself, though I was before. 

Now we're testing this one plant newly discovered up in Lake Glaise that might be able to help with cold symptoms. We aren't testing them on people, because if one of them was actually poisonous or something, that person would sure be done for. 'Stead, we're finding out what it's made of, and comparing what it's made of to what other plants that help with colds are made of. If they share some of the same substances, then they'll maybe able to do the same things. It's neat stuff.  It's lot like when we were finding the keys to that plague, when we were figuring out the cure. I really liked that work. 

  
Your garden is coming up? It looked fine when I last saw it, and I bet you're taking good care of it. Crane is still trying to work growing them tomato plants in his greenhouse? You know, I almost feel sorry for him, but not quite. 

I am going to come back to Discipline. The girls and me are trying to figure out a time when we can all come up together. I should probably be writing to them soon.  
  


Miss you, Rosie.   
  
---  
_  
From Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, Summersea, in Emelan, to Briar Moss, Earth-temple, __Stepping__Stone__Islands_:_  
  
Yes, the shirt enclosed is for you. I made it myself on the looms. Like I told you, Adrienna helped me to seal it with a protective spell, so you won't get sick. I thought it sort of appropriate; since you're working in a sort of medical laboratory, it wouldn't do for you to get sick. I'm working on one for Daja and Tris each, but they aren't done quite yet._

  
The Duke has found nothing for me to do. I myself thought I should make myself useful, instead of sitting around here looking pretty. I went down to the hospital in the city, wondering if they needed bandages or something to be woven. No, they had bandages. They needed help around the building. They insisted if I wanted to sew, they could show me how to stitch a wound. I'm not sure if they were teasing me or being morbid or not, so I left. I couldn't possibly work in the hospital, stitching wounds or no. Blood makes me queasy, even still, sometimes. So alas, I still have nothing to do, and I have tried, I really have. I'm contemplating asking Duke Vedris if I can take a visit back to Winding Circle, hopefully soon. Life here is _that_ boring. 

  
Enough about me. How have you been? I've been told that Rosethorn paid you a visit. I'd like to know she's alright. Has anyone heard from Niko? I don't even know if he's still at Winding Circle, or if he's off doing "special errands" like he usually is. I should probably write a letter to Lark, too.  There's something to do! 

  
No one's been able to talk through the mind link still, though I have tried often enough. It's just, when I reach, there isn't anyone _there. I can feel your presence - as in, you're around, somewhere - but I just can't touch you. It's frustrating! I'm writing to Niko soon to see if he can help, unless someone else has already done so. I still have our circle just as we left it. It's not been broken or anything. So, that's not the problem._

  
I've still got my crystal, the glowing one you gave me. I don't know how much light you put into it, but it sure was plenty. This light won't be going out for a while. But it really is helping me. The dark's not as bad anymore, though I definitely prefer daytime.

  
I have to cut this letter short. The Duke says it's suppertime. Take care of yourself, Briar. I can't believe it's been 2 years since we left Winding Circle!  
  


---  
  
_From Tris Chandler, __Growing Circle__ _Temple___, near Ninver, to Daja Kisubo, Hajra, in Sotat:  
  
The studying continues! You wouldn't believe some of the strange spells I've learned. I can call and charm lightning now at will. Not __control it - I've learned you can't force nature to do anything - but ask it nicely enough that it will probably do what I ask. You remember how I had sparks all over me for a while there? Well, I still can do that, but I can control if I want to do that now. That's a good thing. It was pretty strange when people gave me looks for it._

   
My favorite spell of all, though, is using a seeing crystal. The master gave all of us a crystal, which he commanded us to do all sorts of stuff with. You have to place energy in them, place in it a memory of the person you want to track, such and such. It works, too. Right now I'm watching Sandry walk down the halls of the castle. It's good to see her again, even if I can't tell her anything. 

I can't talk to people using the crystal, not yet. For one they've got to have a crystal too. Maybe Sandry can use that one we gave her. It's not a seeing crystal, but it's a crystal. I hope she still has it, but she couldn't have lost it in the two years it's been since we left Winding Circle, do you think? And anyhow, it's an intricate spell to talk to a person, too, and the master says I can't do that one, not for a little bit at least.

Don't tell our Lady Sandry that I'm spying on her, though. I should probably have asked her, first. But I'm not meaning to spy on her in a bad way. I just want to see if she's, you know, safe. You mind if I check in on you? I'd love to see your doors. They sound wonderful!

  
It's been quiet lately, the sky, I mean. It doesn't storm often. I wonder where all the storms have gone? Maybe it's just where I'm situated. I mean, the weather might be different here in Ninver, though I do remember it storming more than this the last time I was here.

  
Maybe we can get together sometime. I know that we've been saying we want to get together for a while now, but now seems like a good time. I'm not too busy - the masters let us have a short break in the year, and I'm able to take it now if I want - and I know Sandry's not too busy. I figure  
your doors are near done, considering how long the first ones took. I don't know about Briar though. I hope that we can all get away. Two years is far too long to go without seeing each other.  
  
---  
  
_From Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, Summersea, Emelan, to Tris Chandler, __Growing  
Circle__Temple__, near Ninver:  
  
Spying on me, are you? Well, I don't mind, not too much. Just next time, would you mind warning me?  
  
_

I finally found something to do. Loom houses in the city called to me. The noble ladies say that little noble girls shouldn't like spinning, only embroidery. Hmph! I'll tie them in knots if they try and stop me! I went to the loom houses and I'm helping the city people make clothes. Robes, specifically. They make the robes that get sent to all the Living Circle Temples, including Winding Circle's. Isn't that something? It would sure be neat if I could send a robe specifically for Lark. Wouldn't she be proud to see my loom-work improve!

  
Only, there's a problem. You're at a school; maybe you can ask some master what to do. There's something wrong with the cotton and the flax and the wool threads. They don't do anything. Don't have any energy. It's harder to spin them, because they don't stick so easily. They don't respond to much of anything. And it's not just _my_ threads, it's everyone's in the loom houses. They're such a trouble, the threads, when you try to work with them this way. 

  
Maybe the threads are _sick_ or something? They sure act like they're sick. It makes me sad to see them that way. 

  
Could you ask your master or something if he or she has any idea what's going on? Or ask if they've heard of it someplace else? Maybe it's just the threads in Summersea, but what if it's all of the threads? What do we do?

  
It sounds silly for me to worry about a few threads, but I know you hurt when they're something wrong with the tides or the winds. Briar can feel his plants in pain. Daja's metals suffer, and she suffers with them. 

  
Anyhow, I don't want to worry myself, or anyone else, to death. How is the school? You will teach me some of what you've learned, won't you? I would love to hear all about your adventures at Growing Circle, whilst I sit and ponder the trouble of the looms.   
  
---  
  
_From Dedicate Lark, Winding Circle Temple, Emelan, to Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, Summersea, Emelan:  
_  
I hear you're doing well. I'm glad you found something to do! You sounded just bored to tears with nothing to do around the castle. I'm not sure why your threads are acting up, but I can say mine are doing the same. It's probably the heat - the heat doesn't suit wool and cotton, especially. I don't know what the weather's like over there, but it sure is a scorcher over in Winding Circle! And it's rather dry, too, come to think of it. Rosethorn's plants are not happy. 

Anyhow, I'll just as Niko, when he next drops by. Right now, he's not here. He's visiting some other mage-friend of his in Zakdin. I'm sure it's not really serious. Don't worry about it.

  
Well, all is well at Winding Circle. Discipline is lonely without you. Since we've had no further "kids" that need our assistance, Discipline is no longer the home to myself or Rosie. We house with the other Earth dedicates in their dormitory. Honored Moonstream knows that while we say we're waiting for other children to be assigned to us, we simply like the idea of rooms to ourselves. Rosethorn had to transfer all her plants to pots and then replant them in the garden near our dormitory. I don't have as much time to weave to myself anymore, but it's alright. 

  
Have you spoken with the others lately? If you do speak with any of them, tell them hello for me, would you? Although, if I remember the last letter you sent me, you said that you don't "speak" with anyone. You can't due to the distance, you say? If you'd like, I could ask Niko about that one too.

  
Time to go now. Best of luck, Sandry!  
  
---  
_  
From Briar Moss, Earth-temple, Stepping Stone Islands, to Dedicate Rosethorn,  
__Winding Circle__ _Temple___, Emelan:  
  
How are you doing, Rosie? I haven't gotten another letter, a reply to the one I wrote you a while ago. You sure you sent it to the right place? I'd be right sad if you hadn't even written me._

  
The _shakkan_ is doing alright, but it seems sort of tired lately. I think it must miss you. I've been giving it that feed you told me, and I put the wire around that one branch that was sort of weak, but it still seems tired. Some of the other plants in the lab, too - they aren't dying, they just don't feel right when you probe them magically, you know? Or maybe I'm wrong, and I'm just imagining  
things. 

Mayhap the _shakkan_ just doesn't like the water here, or something. Could you ask Niko, or tell me if something's wrong?   
  


---  
  
_From Daja Kisubo, Hajra, in Sotat, to Briar Moss, Earth-temple, __Stepping__Stone__Islands_:___  
  
These doors shouldn't be taking longer, but they somehow are. They're the same size, and even simpler design, but they still somehow are taking a while. The metals are being....well, weird. They're making it difficult to make anything out of them. They're hard to work with. The Hajran emperor must have gotten a weak third-notch quality metal for us to work with. Cheap._

  
Well, anyhow, we just aren't done yet, and thankfully the emperor hasn't given us _more_ doors, so I'm not sure what project is up next. It'll be an adventure.

  
If you talk to Tris, could you tell her it's _not okay for her to spy on me? If you don't know what that's about, she made a seeing crystal and is watching everyone with it. You better tell her not to spy on you, too, while you're at it._

  
Are you still breeding plants? Or doing something else now? I thought that you were testing some new plant found someplace in the Namorn Empire, but maybe someone told me wrong. 

  
Lark's asking Niko how we can strengthen the mind-link. Thank you, Trader Koma! Maybe we can get this fixed. It's strange not being in contact with anyone. I trust Niko can get us out of this one. He's gotten us out of all sorts of trouble before.

  
Well, I have to go back to the forge and make more doors. Can you hear me groaning? I swear I'll never touch a door as long as I live after this. 

  
Hate to be sounding so down, but it isn't fun anymore with these... these_ sick metals! _

  
Have fun with your plants.  
  
---  
  
_From Briar Moss, Earth-temple, Stepping Stone Islands, to Tris Chandler, __Growing   
Circle__Temple__, near Ninver:  
  
Keep your neb out of my business, Coppercurls. Me - and Daja - don't like being spied on!  
  
---  
  
Tris Chandler closed the letter and laughed. __That Briar Moss isn't ever going to get rid of this thief-tongue, is he? she asked herself. Shaking her head, she leaned back on her bed, stuck the letter under her pillow (along with all the other letters from Briar, Sandry, and Daja, which she read and re-read from time to time), and blew out her candle._

  
She closed her eyes, thinking. Well, it had been 3 long years since she'd left Winding Circle. Three years! She couldn't believe she'd been gone that long. A lot could happen in three years. She wondered how much everyone had changed. They didn't seem changed from the letters they'd written her. 

_But what can a mere letter say about how a person's changed? You have to really talk and see them to tell if they have changed,_ Tris thought. _In three years, you'd think they would change._ She suddenly realized that she herself had changed in the years since she'd left Winding Circle. She had grown a slight bit less snappy, though she still was quite sarcastic. She had physically changed as well. She had grown slightly taller without getting all that much wider, making her appear thinner. 

But she still had the same stupid frizzy hair, and she still wore glasses, and deep inside, she was still Tris Chandler, Weather-mage and Discipline-alumni, once thought to be possessed, now thought to be a fantastic mage, bookworm, soul mate to Briar, Sandry, and Daja, student of Niklaren Goldeye, daughter to Dedicates Rosethorn and Lark, and the greatest Tris Chandler there could ever be. 

  
She rolled over to her stomach. It had been a long day. And what better day to cure that than by having a long night to balance it out? It was a wonderful plan. And with that, Tris closed her eyes and slept.

  
Outside, a storm began to rage.  
  
---  
  
Daja wiped her forehead and looked at her sad metals, glowing like embers in her hands. They certainly didn't feel right to her. She shook her head, trying to convince herself it was simply a weak type of copper she wasn't used to. That was all. She didn't want to think that something was wrong with her metals, that they were sick. Daja knew as well as any mage that things in nature didn't change, unless someone had forced them to magically, or unless the earth was changing itself. Either way, it meant trouble. 

_And I've already had my share of trouble, thank you very much!_ she thought, picking up a hammer. _Just another week and we'll be done with the doors, _thought Daja as she pounded the copper angrily. _Finally! Maybe we could get a chance to visit _Winding Circle___. I sure would love to go back and see everyone. _

She sighed as the metal slowly, very slowly, terribly slowly, began to bend in the direction she wanted it to. _If these metals weren't... weak, then this door could have been done a few weeks ago! _she thought,irritated. She later felt guilty. She had never felt mad at her metals, and she disliked the feeling of brokenness between her and her favorite thing in the world.

  
She also had a sneaking feeling that this wasn't the metals' fault at all.

  
Twisting the metal around itself, Daja felt a strange humming around her. The metal suddenly became limp in her hands. All the metals in the room became cold, weak - nearly soft! - and dead in feel. Turning to Frostpine, she saw the metal in his hands was falling to pieces as well. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the brass cap on her staff was melting down its sides. Rushing to it - she treasured her staff more than anything! - she gasped as the metal began to pool on the floor. 

Reaching out to touch the brass, it flowed around her fingers and burned her. This was unusual!  
Daja could handle hot metals from the forge and not be burned, but this metal, which wasn't even hot, was hurting her beyond her imagination. 

Then she realized that the burning sensation wasn't from heat of the metal. It was a pain that the metal was bearing, and it was passing it onto her. The pain was so intense that Daja fell to her knees, screaming in agony, tears flowing down her brown cheeks.  
  
---  
  
Tris woke in the middle of the night with a horrible feeling in her gut. Something was very wrong. She couldn't tell what it was, but the feeling was even worse than when the earthquakes had come. The feeling was that of fear, fear that didn't belong to her, but to someone else that should _never be afraid of anything. She rolled out of bed, slipping on some sandals, and dashed down out of the dormitory to a hallway with a large window. _

  
Flinging open the windows, Tris got a large gust of wind, rain, and hail in her face. She pulled off her glasses very quickly, afraid the hail might crush them and send glass shards into her eyes. She shielded her face with her hand and looked out.  
  


Storms! They were everywhere! Nature was going insane, ripping out everything it had to offer. Hail and lightning, rain, even a small amount of snow dotted the sky. Shaking her head, as scared as she was confused, Tris realized the clouds were rolling away from her. They seemed like they  
were running from something. _But why? Tris thought.  _I've never felt nature itself be afraid. Something's very wrong! The Dedicates – I must tell them what's happening!_ _

  
Before she left, Tris took a last glance out the window. The last thing she saw, a cloud, blowing away from her, crackled its lightning. Suddenly, as if it were a bird shot down by a hunter, the cloud began to fall through the sky, plummeting to earth. The pieces of it spread and hit the ground, sending fog in swirls over the land. 

Tris felt a warm tear run down her face. She had just witnessed the death of a cloud. True, before she had seen clouds fade, but they never really died, only changed into something new. But this cloud was dead, and it wasn't coming back. The thought hurt Tris more than anything, and, slamming the windows, she sniffled back her pain. She proceeded to run to the Dedicate Superior's room.  
  
---  
  
Briar stroked his _shakkan__. The raw energy that had once been inside it was fading slowly. He feared it was dying. It felt even worse than when Briar first had retrieved it from Dedicate Crane's greenhouse. A few leaves fell off of the plant as he touched it. Briar quickly drew his hand away, thinking he was the cause. _

  
"Back to work, everyone!" called the overseer. Briar nodded and got up from under a tree, where he spent most of his breaks tending his sick _shakkan_. He headed over to his station and picked up his watering can. It was his duty to water and give plant food to all the plants they were experimenting with in the lab. He headed over to the water pump and began to fill it up. He was listening to two of the workers at the pump discussing plans that the Dedicate Superior had told everyone about.

  
"Dedicate Bramble says he's noticed many of the pots have cracks in them, so he's ordering new ones," said the first, a short, tubby female.

  
"I've heard. Why are they all cracked though? We handle the plants quite gently!" the second asked, a tan woman not much older than Niko.

"He doesn't know. Maybe they're just getting too small since the plants have started growing bigger."

  
Briar filled his can, listening to the women, who were unaware that someone was eavesdropping on them.  
  


"Too small? Hmph. They look big enough to me. Maybe they're just bad quality. My mum said you can't get the pottery pots from Traders. She says Traders are all cheaters and liars from the day that they're born...."  
  


Briar grumbled under his breath, feeling protective of Daja's pride.  
  


He noticed now that his watering can had overflowed. He hadn't noticed because he'd been listening to the women talk. Now he quickly shut off the water.  
  


The first woman turned to Briar, snorting. "Didn't your momma tell you it's rude to listen in on other people's conversations?" she said, having heard Briar's grumbling.

  
Suddenly there was a great crash inside the building where they had been working. It sounded in Briar's mind like screaming at the same time. Followed by the crash was the sound of yelling, calling back and forth to each other, and hushed whispers. Briar ran in with his watering can, followed by the workers.  
  


Gasping as he entered, Briar dropped his watering can at the sight before him. The plants had all burst from their pots. Broken pieces of pots lay all over the ground, on the tables, even in some of the lab equipment. Briar figured the pots must have broken explosively - a pair of workers held their hands over their faces, wailing that the shards of pottery had hit them in the eye. One removed their hands; Briar wished they hadn't, for the gore that was revealed wasn't pretty. A few bottles of chemicals had been broken by flying pottery, and the chemicals leaked onto the table. A few moments later, the mixed chemicals exploded, causing more chaos.   
  


Briar ran over to the nearest plant. It lay in a pile of dirt, broken pottery, and with a tab that was color-coded red. This was one of the plants that was the result of a breeding between the two tea-plants, as the red tab indicated. 

Briar pushed aside some of the dirt around the base of the plant. He paled. The plants roots had swelled to an enormous size, had turned coal- black, and oozed pussy liquid. The swelled size of the roots, which had grown hard as rocks, had caused the plant to explode. 

  
Rushing to another plant, he saw this one was coded blue. This had been a result of a different sort of breeding between plants. The same hard, swelled roots were present. Going from plant to plant, he saw the same instance between all. From this, he came to the conclusion that this wasn't the result of an experiment-gone-wrong, because it was the same with all the plants of all the different experiments. 

It was something different, something worse, something very big. 

  
Suddenly, he paled. _My _shakkan_!_ he thought. Pushing through a crowd, Briar ran outside to the tree where his _shakkan_ was. He fell to his knees, picking up the pieces of the broken pot that once had housed his _shakkan_. The plant itself lay in a pile of dirt, along with wire that had been used to hold the branches in place. Briar noticed the metal wire, too, was amiss – the metal was soft like gum, and it was sliding off the branches. Shaking his head and focusing on the _shakkan_ itself, with shaky hands Briar fumbled for the plant roots. Sure enough, as he had predicted, the _shakkan's_ roots had swelled and looked as if they were rotted. 

Sniffling back a worried tear, Briar focused on the larger tree under which he knelt. He probed through the dirt with his mind, feeling for the tree roots. The earth and the soil felt wrong under  
him, as if it were being shifted out of place. When he finally came to the roots, he could see why - the roots had swelled as had those of all the other plants, soaking the soil with ooze and pushing the dirt out of place. Feeling through all the nearby soil, Briar came to see that the roots of all the plants had swollen up to the point of bursting. He wondered if they were like this  
elsewhere.

  
_No time for that! You have to tell Bramble what's happening!_ Briar scolded himself. Cupping the delicate _shakkan_, Briar made his way back to the lab center. Immediately, he ran through the crowds of alarmed people, who were all sorting through plants, trying to assist more bruised and beaten workers, dodging plants that were still exploding from their pots, and trying to clean up the mess. An exploding pot knocked Briar on the arm, causing a deep scratch, but Briar wasn't badly hurt and kept running.

  
He at last came to Honored Bramble, who was standing amidst the ruckus. In hurried breaths, Briar rambled off his suspicions to the tall, lean Dedicate.  
  


The Dedicate nodded, hearing him out, and finally said, "I believe your conclusions are correct. I was thinking the same thing myself."  
  


"What are we going to do about it? Isn't there someone that could have stopped this, or that could keep it from happening again?"

  
"I'm not sure," said Honored Bramble muttered, a far-away look in his eyes. Briar could have sworn it was one of fear. _That scared him. The idea that even the adults didn't know what to do was frightening enough. Briar shuddered as he heard another pot bust open, gently tracing the leaves of his dying _shakkan___.  
  
---  
  
"This is fickle wool," said the common girl in the loom house, trying to unravel a snarled spindle. Sandry sighed at helped her. She noticed that the thread was trembling as the girl handled it. She shook her head, wondering why the thread was doing as it was. _

  
Suddenly there was a screeching halt. All the looms in the loom house froze, the pieces of the loom screaming to a dead stop. Sandry covered her hands over her ears, shielding from her hearing the sound. As soon as the great commotion was over, the loom house workers rushed to the looms to see what the matter was.

  
"Snarled!" cried a worker. "All snarled!"

  
All the threads of the looms had snarled into one another, creating a great knotted mess. Sandry knew that the disruption would take days to undo. One woman, a thin, lanky, older spinner, reached into the beams of the looms to try and work any of the thread loose. The thread suddenly jumped out at her, reaching out with a hand made of fiber, gripping her and throwing her against the wall. She fell, shuddering from the impact, though not badly hurt.  
  


Sandry gasped.  _What was that? she thought. She watched the thread-hand recoil and lean out to strike another person, but it missed the nearby girl and rammed into a pole, sending threads all over the floor._

  
_The thread is alive,_ thought Sandry. Cautiously, she stepped forth and caught a falling thread in her hand. Alone, she could see it was shaking, too.  
  


She reached into it with her magical mind, feeling fear in its fibers. _The thread is afraid? she pondered. _Why is it afraid, and why did it lash out at those people?__

_  
Maybe it's trying to protect itself,_ she said in her mind. _But what from? Releasing the thread, she let it fall lifeless.   
  
_

_Lark!_ she screamed in her mind. _Daja! Tris! Briar! Something is wrong with nature itself! You must help me! _She knew, though, her cry was not heard.

  
---  
  
_From Niklaren Goldeye, Winding Circle Temple, Emelan, to Briar Moss, Earth-temple, Stepping Stone Islands; Tris Chandler, Growing Circle Temple, Ninver; Lady Sandreliene fa Toren, Summersea, Emelan; Daja Kisubo, Hajra, Sotat:  
_  
Dear Tris, Briar, Daja, and Sandry:  
  


You might have figured out that something is very wrong with the land, with the earth, with nature. Storms have gone insane all over, thrashing about. Plants are sick and dying. Metal has grown soft and weak. Thread is impossible to work with. At this rate, if something is not done to stop this, the earth will tear itself apart. 

  
Unfortunately, here at Winding Circle, we don't have all the answers. All we know - all we guess - is that man has done this to nature, as in nature, this sort of thing has never before occurred. We know not if a single character, a group, or all mankind in general has provoked nature to turn on us. But we do know that we will do anything we can to stop it. 

  
Children, the time has come for you to come home. You are now needed more than ever to come back and help rid us of this misfortunate turn of events that is breaking the world up.   
  


Take the next horse cart, boat ride, or what have you to get here. We meet in the next few days. See to it.   
  
---

AN: I changed Briar's accent. First of all, you don't have an accent if you write a letter… especially not such an awful accent, like there was before. 


	3. Chapter 2

AN: I wanted to say first before I began this chapter that the four mages are about 18 years old, because in my story, they left Winding Circle at 15, and now three years later they have returned. "The Circle Opens" series has not happened and isn't going to happen, not at this point in time at least, I think.   
  
Disclaimer (need I say it?) : Tamora Pierce and Scholastic, Inc. (c. 1997) own all characters in the story, with a few exceptions. "Raeldro" (introduced in this chapter) is my character, and does not exist in the "Circle of Magic" stories. His name is pronounced "ray-EL-dro."  
  


Thought-speech is underlined, to distinguish it from regular old thoughts, which are italicized.

---   
  
Briar smiled and ran his fingers through the moist soil in the garden. He looked up and around his surroundings.  _Been so long since I've been here, he thought, remembering. _Here I am again, ___Winding Circle__. Just when I thought I escaped you, I'm right back where I started. Which, I might add, isn't as bad a thing as it might seem._

  
Discipline cottage was not currently lived in my any training mages. Since he had the opportunity and wouldn't be disturbing anyone, Briar decided he might like to visit his old home and see if it was as he'd left it. 

The building itself was the same, he noted, but the feel of the place was very different. It was empty. The cottage was not dusty - it was cleaned regularly, particularly by the children at the bunks as a punishment - but it was very barren. The shelves had nothing on them. The rooms upstairs were deserted; none of the children's personal belongings adding a special flare or originality to them. Lark's and Rosethorn's separate bedrooms and workshops had nothing in them either. 

Sadly, Briar realized that this place didn't seem like home at all. _It's the people that make a home what it is, I guess, thought Briar. _

  
What saddened Briar especially was the fact that Rosethorn's garden was gone. The plants, even though they had seemed to another like an insignificant part of the cottage, had been more like people and friends to Briar. Here at Discipline, without his plants, Briar had nothing to hold on to, nothing that he could catch and remember as something of the house that belonged to him and the girls. 

  
_Wait. I can think of something after all. _  
  


Briar entered the house, climbed up the stairs to the top floor, and appeared moments later on the roof of the building. _If there's anything about this place that does feel like home, it's being right here, _he thought with a sigh. The sky looked beautiful from the roof, with the clouds made of an array of whites and the sky as deep as the ocean. Briar leaned back and closed his eyes.   
  


A few moments later, Briar heard a very female voice calling out from below. "Do I see someone on the roof over there?"

  
"Yeah!" said Briar, shooting up from his place like a bean sprout. "What's it to you?"

  
The person below - who, in Briar's opinion, looked very small and was hard to see - paused and squinted at him a moment. Then, the person burst out in a very high voice, "Briar Moss! Is that you?" 

  
_That voice sounds real familiar! But ain't quite right_, he thought. He peered at the girl harder. She was tall and thin, though not overly so. From high on the rooftop, the features of the girl were very unclear. Her hair was light, accented by a light cream dress, which seemed very expensive in his opinion. There was only one person in the entire world who dressed like that - like a Bag - and knew his name. "Sandry?" he asked.

  
"Briar!" Sandry cried. She promptly ran through the gate, holding up her skirt, while Briar scrambled down from the roof. The clatter of feet on wooden stairs echoed through the house as Briar descended the stairs and Sandry tripped through the kitchen. They met at the bottom of the stairwell in an enthusiastic hug.   
  


"Goodness it's wonderful to see you!" squealed Sandry. From a much closer distance, Briar recognized her immediately. She still looked like Sandry, though an older version of Sandry. Her hair had grown much longer, past her lower back. _At least she isn't wearing those ridiculous braided pigtails still! thought Briar with a laugh inside. She'd grown a little taller, too, but not by much. _

  
Briar, on the other hand, had grown about six or seven inches since Sandry had last seen him. "When did you get so cursed tall?" she exclaimed.  _Briar definitely looks older. More mature, _she concluded. She was right. Besides the fact that he now towered over her, his face was much older in appearance and his build did not look as child-like. He still dressed the same, she noted. 

  
"When did you shrink?" he retorted. 

  
"I have not shrunk!" Sandry cried. 

  
"I think you did. I couldn't gotten that tall, really."

  
Sandry looked down. "Shortness happens in my family. I'm going to have to get used to it." She took a seat at the kitchen table. "Wow! Does it feel good to be back here or what? I've missed this old place, haven't you?"

  
"Sure have," he said, looking around for the fifth time. "So what have you been doing lately?"  
  


"I've been helping my uncle with a trillion things around his lands, at least recently. Before that I was sitting doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs. I've been weaving and working on that, too," she added, stopping talking abruptly. "But it hasn't been any pleasure weaving recently, not after the earth going astray from its patterns. The thread is... it's as if it's afraid, and running. It doesn't want to be touched. If some one does touch it, it lashes out at you, literally. I saw a woman thrown across a room by scared thread. It needs help, but right now I don't know about how to go about helping it." Sandry looked away, quite saddened.

  
"I haven't noticed. My clothes ain't been coming undone or nothing."

  
"Same here, but perhaps its because its all woven together already, and it can't break free. But, well, it's just a guess."

  
Briar paused. "Noticed anything wrong with the plants that you seen?" 

  
"All I know is all the crops in the farms surrounding Summersea are dying. The farmers are going broke. We are having to draw upon surpluses we've stored away."  
  


"Come outside to look at my _shakkan_," Briar said simply, motioning to Sandry for her to come outside. She obeyed, following him to the side of the building where the _shakkan had been set down by Briar earlier. _

  
The plant was in a huge pot, one that was much larger than the plant itself. Stakes driven into the soil held up the weak plant. It was very dry on the bark, the leaves were dull, and it felt limp. Sandry, who knew little about trees, especially about delicate _shakkans, could even tell that it was dying.   
  
_

Brushing a hand over it, she asked Briar, "What happened?"  
  


"Come look at this," he said, parting the dirt under the _shakkan. Sandry could see and smell how the roots had grown large and swelled, oozing liquid. "It's why it's in such a big pot, so that the roots will fit in it. The old pot broke when the roots pushed it so hard. I had to replant it. But it still won't stay up too well on its own, so them stakes are holding it up."_

  
"That's horrible."  
  


"Yeah, and at the lab all the potted plants did the same thing. The pots exploded when the roots pushed through. And they still are cleaning up the mess that was made."

Sandry shook her head. "I'm glad I wasn't there!" she said. Looking away, she asked, "Can we please not talk about it, not just yet? I'm glad to be back. Let's not ruin it with talk of swollen _shakkans__ and murderous threads."  
  
_

"Sure. Want to go for a walk, see what's going on here?" Briar asked her. Sandry smiled and nodded, and they went on their way.  
  
---  
  
She threw another stone into the water, the small pebble making a splashing noise as the rock contacted the water. While waiting to meet Niko at the Hub in an hour, Tris read a book to pass the time, not knowing what else to do. She had found this little niche on the way from the Hub back to Discipline one day, years ago, and had decided to come back if she needed alone time. It was   
in a patch of trees, near the edge if the woods, by a stream. It was not her spot alone, though; the temple dedicates had set up this spot as a place for relaxation and meditation and had put a bench here for others to use, so sometimes when Tris had come she'd found it occupied. 

  
Now, it was all hers, and tossing another pebble into the stream, she continued her reading.  
   
"Tris?" asked a voice behind her. "That you?" Tris looked up to see a tall male figure advancing out of the shadows. She blinked at him. His hair was very dark, his skin a tan color. His bright green eyes flashed out from the dark shadow which the trees cast on him. His shirt was cotton, with a brown vest over it and brown pants and sandals. 

She blinked at him again behind her glasses and shook her head. "You can't possibly be who I think you are."  
  


"I bet you a silver astrel I sure am," he replied, smiling at her.   
  


"You look older, Briar," she said quietly, a faint smile on her cheeks.   
  


"Well, hope so. I don't want to look like I'm 10 years old forever," laughed Briar. "I would say the same about you, Coppercurls."   
  


"And I thought you might have forgotten that name," she smiled.

  
"No, you can't rid me of that easily," he said. "It's fun to tease you."  
  


"Tris!" cried a loud voice, much louder than the first voice. Behind the male appeared a much shorter figure, one that was definitely female. Blinking hard twice, Tris wondered who it was. Then she recognized the light hair and eyes, the fancy dress, and the bubbly attitude. 

"Well, if it isn't the Bag of us," said Tris with a smirk.

  
"So you do recognize me! Briar didn't, not at first, anyway," laughed the young woman. Sandry came right up to Tris and embraced her in a large hug, causing Tris to drop the book she had been holding. Giggling, Sandry released her and blushed.   
  


"Can you tell I am excited to see you?" she grinned.   
  


"Most definitely," she said, smiling as well.   
  


"I missed you. How was Growing Circle?" asked Sandry.  
  


"It doesn't feel as much like home as this place does, but it's nice." She leaned back and smiled. "Have you seen Daja?"

  
"No," replied Briar. "I only got here about an hour ago."  
  


"Neither have I. I'm sure she's on her way, though," added Sandry. She fiddled with her long hair, braiding a strand of it very rapidly. "Um, Tris? Have you noticed..."  
  


"Yes. The storms run and flee," said Tris, answering the unasked question. She looked away. "Have you ever felt nature be afraid?" Before anyone could answer, she put in, "I did. When I woke up in the middle of the night, the storms were running away from something. Where they went, I don't know, but they were running, and they were scared. I could smell the fear in them." She closed her eyes. "One of them fell to the earth, maybe it tripped on a stray wind, I don't know. Anyhow, it fell to the ground, and exploded. And I don't think that's a normal thing, either. I've never, ever seen a cloud fall, or heard of it." She shuddered again. 

  
"Tris, I'm sorry," whispered a sober Sandry.  
  


"I don't need sympathy," she grumbled coldly. "I just need to do something. We have to talk to Niko about this and find out a plan to fix this as soon as possible." She sat up abruptly. "What time is it?"  
  


"Not time to go to the Hub for at least half an hour," Briar responded.  
  


Sitting back impatiently, Tris ran a hand through her messy hair. "Well, then, we have time to spare." She peered at Briar. "How was the experimenting?"  
  


"Interesting," he said, nodding. "You've never seen so many plants in one building."  
  


"Building?" asked Sandry.  
  


Briar put in, "It was a greenhouse."  
  


Tris smirked. "Rosie knows?"  
  


"Yeah," Briar grinned back. "But I think that she wasn't happy when I wrote her that."   
  


"So what was so interesting about it?" she asked.  
  


Briar paused. Then he briefly told her about his experiments, and more lengthily described his experience with the swelled plant roots. Tris shook her head the whole time, muttering about the foreboding death of whoever was doing this. Briar promised to show her the _shakkanwhen they got to Discipline. _

  
Tris peered at Sandry over her glasses. "I assume you've had your troubles," she said dryly. Sandry nodded with a grim smile and told her story as well. She also put the long periods of boredom, her uncle's chores for her, and Adrienna into her tale. Tris sighed and leaned back after hearing the stories. 

  
"Trouble's brewing," she said with her eyes closed, letting cool wind brush over her.   
  


"We'll face it later… today is lovely, isn't it? There's nothing we can do until we see Niko." Trying to change the subject quickly, she asked Tris, "Can you show me a spell you learned? Please?"

  
Tris smiled faintly. "Sure, watch this," she said. Taking one hand - her left - over her head, palm up, she mumbled something. Briar and Sandry could feel a surge of power in the air above them. Suddenly, a flash of lightning screeched down from the blue sky. Quickly, Tris turned her left hand so the palm faced the palm of her other hand, which was now also raised over her head. She brought down her hands in front of her. She held a lightning bolt between her palms, a large one, which jumped and fizzled between her fingers as well. It was much larger than any lightning bolt she could have handled in the past.   
  


"Nice," whispered Sandry.   
  


"Very nice," said Briar in agreement, "but what are you going to do with it? It's no good to just hold lightning." Briar grinned at her, not sounding mean, but even Sandry could see he was implying it.

  
Glaring at his mocking tone, Tris raised her hands over her head again. In a lightning-quick motion, she threw her hands in front of her. The bolt flew from her hands and struck the ground in front of her, leaving a huge circle of glass in front of her. The dirt had heated and solidified. She smiled sweetly and brushed her hands against each other. "That," she replied in answer to his question.

  
"Damn," he muttered, awe-struck.

  
"Briar!" cried Sandry. "Didn't you grow out of that street-talking?"

  
Briar rolled his eyes, and Sandry made a play punch at him.  
  


Tris was playing with a ball of wind in her hand while her companions argued. Briar interrupted her game with a "Hey!" Tris looked up, releasing the wind.   
  


"What?" she asked with a raised brow.  
  


"Daja said you were spying on me! And I just remembered, with you doing magic and all, and I wanted to say..."

  
"Would you quiet? I never did spy on you or Daja, only Sandry. Once I got your warning letter, I backed off with the spying altogether!" cried Tris. "So don't accuse." 

  
She sniffed angrily.  
  


Sandry sighed. _Briar has to argue with everyone,_ she thought with some resent. _But I suppose it's one of his perks. After all, don't we all have them? I get stubborn always, which can be good but can also be bad. I'm also very noble-minded. Tris gets grumpy and sarcastic and blows people off whenever she doesn't want to talk. Daja is touchy about race. She acts sometimes like Traders are superior, but I know she doesn't really mean it. And Briar, along with arguing, is disobedient._

She fiddled with her hair. _We all have imperfections. It's something I've realized over the years. But I think everyone's imperfections outweigh their good sides. And they wouldn't be themselves without them. I wouldn't be Lady Sandreliene fa Toren if I wasn't a stubborn mule!_

   
Sandry looked up to realize that Briar had asked her a question. "What?" she asked him.

"I said, daydreamer, want to head to the Hub and get there a early? Better that than to be late. Niko sure isn't appreciative of lateness," Briar said with a grin.

  
"Oh, good idea," she said with a smile back at him. The three made their way to the curved trail that gave Winding Circle its name.  
  
---  
  
Daja Kisubo, who now considered herself to be against the concept of doors, walked tiredly along the trail that led to the Hub. She had been working on the doors of Hajra since moments before she left the city, but finally, they were done. Daja had only gotten a glance of the whole, complete doors before she had to go. She really didn't care anymore, though. The doors had been more of a hassle since the world turned sick than they had been fun. She didn't want to even touch them anymore. 

  
In a sense, Daja had been through the worst struggles since the four had left Winding Circle. Sandry had been either bored or weaving. Briar had been doing neat experiments and growing plants. Tris had been studying interesting spells. Daja, on the other hand, had been slaving over a hot fire for three years, pounding metals, using as much of her magic as possible day by day to make giant doors for a city. She was physically and magically spent. 

  
_At least I'm probably in better shape than all of them_, she thought, looking at her arms. They were well-toned from lifting heavy hammers to bang metal with. She figured carrying her light staff wasn't the cause!

  
Looking back to a loud giggle, she saw a threesome coming towards her from behind. They were all her age, or near to it. The first was a young man, with bronze skin and bright eyes, who was about as tall as she was. His stance made him look as if he deserved esteem. He was giving a quizzical look to a blondish girl to his right, who was giggling insanely. She was short under his height, but her rich attire made her seem worthy of respect as well. Next to her, also giving her a strange look, was a redhead with large spectacles, her plain mauve dress making her hair appear brighter. Daja smiled. Older they were, but they were still definitely her friends.

  
"Sandry! Briar! Tris!" cried Daja waving to them frantically.   
  


The middle girl, Sandry, popped her head up, freezing in place. Daja supposed Sandry was identifying her. In Sandry's view, the person was definitely familiar; her overall appearance was not delicate and frail, as court ladies were expected to be. But she was not ugly; rather, her beauty was in the strength of her appearance. Immediately, having come to this realization, Sandry knew the final member of the group had been discovered. 

With a grin Sandry popped into the air and bounded over to Daja, leaving Tris peering at the newcomer between her spectacles and Briar looking as well, shielding the sun from his eyes with his hand in order to see better.

  
Daja was smothered by Sandry's hugging arms. "Daja! It's so nice to see you again!" sniffled Sandry, who was getting weepy from all the emotional roller coasters the day had brought. Looking up into Daja's face, she said, "And look! You're taller than me, too! No fair!"

Daja laughed. "I didn't plan it out that way, sorry," she said. Her voice had gotten deeper but still was very feminine. She tugged on a loose braid that had fallen from her ponytail and asked, "How have you been? And how is the Duke?" 

  
"I've been bored out of my mind, thank you," laughed Sandry. She shook her head. "Seriously, I'm alright. Duke Vedris is also well."  
  


By this point, Tris and Briar had caught up to Daja. Tris hugged her, saying, "Welcome home, Daja." The words sounded funny to Daja and Tris. Discipline and Winding Circle were home, but why then did Daja feel so out of place here? _I have grown out of __Winding Circle__, then? she thought with a cry inside her mind. _Never!__

Briar and Daja then embraced. "Glad you're back," he said as they hugged. "Did you like my hometown, Daj'?" he asked with a laugh. 

"Not at all," she said, smiling at him. "Did I tell you that one of your mates stole a hammer from our workshop?"  
  


"You never mentioned it to me," he said, grinning.  
  


Sandry gasped. Daja turned to her, wondering what had caused her to do so. Sandry touched the end of Daja's staff. The metal cap was gone. 

  
"What happened?" Tris whispered, also seeing this.

  
Daja looked down. She explained her experience in the workshop that one day, when all the workable metals in the place had became soft and melted down. The cap on her staff had become nothing more than a messy blob, the Kisubo markings gone from it. She shook her head, rubbing the now-bare end of the walking staff. 

"I hope to get it replaced, sometime, but currently if I replaced it, I feel it would simply melt back down again, with everything how it is," she sighed. Then Sandry, Briar, and Tris, in turn, shared their stories of the corrupted natural elements as they walked on the path to the Hub. 

  
"A conspiracy against us all, against the earth in itself!" muttered Daja angrily as they   
reached the tall tower. The bell of two o'clock began to ring as they got to the front door of the Hub. The four were about to enter when the door was opened by some person on the other side of it. From the open door emerged a well-dressed dark-haired mage.

  
"Niko!" cried the four, and he was smothered in hugs and kisses. 

  
Niklaren Goldeye led the group up a stairwell as he told them of his last three years. He claimed nothing exciting had happened, but in the last year he had basically been observing the changes going on in nature. The crazed storms, disobedient fibers, sick plants, and weak metals, he said, were definitely part of something much bigger. At this point, the four mages backed up his story, informing him in detail about their mishaps with sick nature. He also said complaints had come from other mages about weakness in nature. Stones that once were strong began to crumble. Stars in the sky were dimmer than usual, due to the cloudy atmosphere. Making pottery and glass was so difficult, as clay and the substances used in glass had grown very hard and stiff. Carpenters found that wood broke; even the largest pieces had to be handled with care.   
  


"The world really will break apart if this keeps up!" cried Sandry, thinking how unbalanced the earth seemed now.   
  


"I know," said Niko. They settled into a stairwell, a stairwell where they had practiced one of their first meditation sessions years ago. He continued, "It's only a matter of time."  
  


Tris felt a strong chill go down her back. She disliked the thought of her world, her home, everything she knew, and even herself dying before their time was up! "What can we do?" she asked Niko.

  
"That's what we have been trying to find out, and, with your assistance, we will attempt any sort of remedies. I have contacted many great mages from around the lands, trying to get them to see if they could do anything to stop the earth's destruction. If they have spells, ideas, etcetera. So far, few have ideas. Only Raeldro Earthkin has replied, and he will be visiting us in the next week to share his plans. I trust you have all heard of Raeldro."

  
The four nodded. Raeldro Earthkin was a great mage who had only recently discovered his magic in the last two or three years, but his power had grown so rapidly that now, even only in his early twenties, he had reached and surpassed the level of many older and more experienced mages. He had been given the name "Earthkin" by the mage council because his power was so great, it seemed he was one with the power of the earth and with the earth itself.   
  


Briar, Sandry, and Daja felt relief that he was on their side, but Tris still felt uneasy. "Even with Raeldro, have we much reason to hope? No disrespect to him, but Raeldro's only a man, not a god! He can't do everything," Tris asked Niko. 

  
"I don't know, Tris," he said shaking his head, "if we should hope, but you know that I am going to put up a fight to the last. And I understand your lack of trust in Raeldro. He is not a god, like you said, but his power is close enough to that of one that I have reason to think he could help us a great deal."

  
Tris sighed. "If you say so, Niko." Her master had never before let her down, and she doubted it was a habit he'd start now.  
  


Niko turned from Tris to the whole group. "Now, Raeldro's main idea of what must be done is not complicated, but let me explain a few things to you to start. First of all, nature has three parts. There is the physical part of nature, the part which is the trees and the water and the mountains and the creatures all are part of. There is also the magical part of nature, which can be divided in to 2 sections, which are surely very familiar to you. The life-force, which is a type of magic of the earth, is what keeps it alive. It is what makes the plants live, the water clear. The earth-magic itself is what makes the plants grow, the animals reproduce, the rivers from stopping. The life-force and earth-magic, just like yours, replenish each other when one gets low.

  
"Now that we have that knowledge under our belts, we reason whether the physical part of the earth is being harmed, the life-force, or the earth-magic. If the earth is, like you have said, 'scared' of something, it must fear of being in some way harmed. Nature, as we all know, is not afraid of physical harm. Mankind has already done things such as cutting down trees and damaging metal and breaking up stones, but nature's life-force always able to replenish the earth. Nature is self-sufficient, after all. 

"So, thus, having ruled out physical harm, we come to magical harm. If we look at the earth, we see the problem is not lack of things growing and producing. Water is not low, plants still do reproduce. But they are dying, a sign that the life-force of the earth is damaged. Somewhere, some stupid mage is trying to harm the earth itself through destroying its base. And though usually the earth-magic is able to replenish the life-force, but this is not the case this time. The life-force of the earth must be so damaged that the earth-magic can't replace it itself. 

  
"There's something that we can do, however. We simply need to replace the life-force this mage   
has destroyed. We must have some mages try to heal the earth by supplying our own magics to it, by feeding our magics into it to soothe and heal it little by little. We cannot do it quickly. This sort of thing has not been done before, and so this undertaking is an experiment. To do it quickly might be a waste of power, might cause more trouble within the earth, might cause us to miss some   
important observations. But hopefully, gods will it, this will fill up the empty patches in the earth's life-force. It's a very long and very tedious job, but we're praying to the gods that it might work."

  
"But that requires so much power!" Daja responded.  
  


"And we all have power, but we haven't got that much of it," Briar informed Niko.  
  


"You have more power than you think, Briar and Daja," Niko replied. "You have enough power to heal entirely all the plants in an entire large country, Briar. And Daja could harden up all the metals in the same country as well."  
  


"Poppycock!" squealed Sandry.   
  


"Not at all," Niko told her. "You all can do that, but you yet do not know how. You have not reached the full extent of your power. That's why you have come now. For the next week, you all and I will be working on making your power swell to unimaginable proportions that you never have dreamed of. Raeldro himself told me the method he used to gain more power, and asked that I teach it to you."

  
"Niko," Briar protested. "I'm not so sure about even this here method. But even if it does work, you don't expect _us to do it all!"_

  
"I understand, and trust me that it's taken care of. Mages in all the nearby temples of the Living Circle are working on taking on the same task as you. It helps - tremendously - to have your powers working with us, too. Absolutely we aren't solely relying on you four."

  
"Good. I'm not against responsibility, but there's only so much weight a person can bear," stated Tris. 

   
Sandry immediately had a vision of the four of them holding up the planet in their hands. **They were standing on a ground made of stars, but still seemingly floating in the air. They stood in a circle, in the same positions as their knots were in her thread-circle. The earth rested in their linked hands. The three girls and Briar stood straining against the weight, their muscles tight. It was a quite a sight to see, but the most interesting thing about it was that they were actually succeeding in their job.** She blinked and the vision was gone.   
  


Sandry froze and felt like she could hardly breathe. She held on to the vision in her mind, feeling that it was important. _A message? her mind questioned. _From whom?_ She got a shiver up her spine, thinking maybe some heavenly incarnation had sent her the vision, and made the gods-circle on her chest as quickly as she could, before anyone could notice. _

If the gods had sent her such a vision, a premonition they could do this, then Sandry was quite willing to try her hardest.

  
Niko leaned back on the stairwell. "Here. Tomorrow at nine sharp. Since Discipline is empty now, and the guest rooms are all full with visiting mages helping us in this crisis, you'll have to take your old rooms up at Discipline," he said, rubbing his eyes.  
  


"Fantastic!" giggled Sandry. "My old room," breathed Daja. "It will be nice to see it again."

  
Tris simply smiled inwardly. _Yes,_ she thought, _it's good to be home._  
  
---  
  
After fetching their bags from the main office of the temple city, the four settled back into their rooms once again, just as they had eight years ago when they first arrived at Discipline. 

Sandry sighed and opened her window, letting fresh wind blow in. She set her small trunk at the foot of her bed. She did not unpack and place things in the drawers. She didn't think she would be staying that long, but she didn't know how wrong she would be.

  
Briar across the hall shoved his bag in a corner, not really caring. He smiled at the mat on the floor. He had insisted years ago on losing the bed frame, having only been used to sleeping on the floor. He then set off to a few of the shops to get essentials for their stay, such as toilet paper for the privy, an icebox to put cold food in, a small amount of food for at least a few days, cloths for dusting and cleaning, buckets to carry water from the nearby pump, and clean sheets for the beds, plus more. He dragged Sandry along to help him carry it all, but they still ended up having to make a few trips to get it all back to Discipline.

  
Daja set up her statues on her bed stand, put her treasured survival box next to them (she still carried her _suraku everywhere), and leaned her broken staff in the corner. But something's missing still! she thought. She then remembered what - rather, who - that was. Her adopted mothers, Rosie and Lark. _I wish Rosethorn and Lark were staying with us, so it really felt like home,_ she thought regretfully. Yet inside she knew it to be a near-impossible wish. Lark and Rosie had other things to   
attend to, besides her!_

  
Tris spent no time unpacking, but immediately went up the stairs onto the roof to sit and watch the clouds go by her. She smiled and felt cool breeze wash over her. Peering over the edge of the roof, she watched Briar and Sandry carrying back some food and blankets, laughing over something that was probably not even funny.   
  


She smiled. _I should probably go help them,_ she thought,_ but I think I won't._ A moment later, her conscience took over, and she scrambled down the staircase to assist her companions.

  
A barking noise hit Tris' ears as she descended the stairs. Grinning, she hurriedly skidded through the kitchen on the wooden floors in order to get outside faster. She burst through the door to see a large dog jump up on her. She fell to her knees and hugged Little Bear around his torso. Looking up, she saw the dog's escorts.   
  


"Lark! Rosethorn!" Tris cried, hugging both the dedicates at once. They returned the gesture, Lark weeping unashamedly.

  
Two calls from behind the threesome turned their heads. Sandry and Briar, after setting down their burdens, rushed to greet Lark and Rosethorn as well. Soon a large hugging circle had formed between them all, and in a moment, Daja emerged from her room upstairs to join upon hearing all the ruckus.

  
The six entered the kitchen on Discipline and sat together, discussing their past three years, their recent adventures, and the prospects the future brought. Little Bear followed, snuggling against their feet under the table.

  
"The future looks grim," Rosethorn informed the group. "Hope is scarce among the other dedicates, though they are spending their hearts out in the effort." But then she smiled.  
  


"But you know what?" Lark put in. "I'm not even worrying about tomorrow, 'cause it'll come when it comes. You're here. I have faith in my gods. The day is beautiful – why should I worry? Tomorrow will come. But – later." Her eyes were wet. 

  
Sandry covered Lark's hand with her own. "You're one of the bravest people I know," said Sandry, her eyes filling with tears. "It's no good to see you cry."

  
"Sandry, dear daughter, you don't understand. Some things are meant to be," Lark explained softly. The tears ran down her face, but she did not care.

  
"You're right," Sandry said, shaking her head. "I don't understand. Maybe someday I will." She left it at that.

  
Daja, Briar, and Tris peered at each other at the table. All their eyes were dry, but inside, their hearts wept loudly and mournfully.  
  
---

  
Nothing compares to sliding into a bed at night and knowing you belong. It was a sensation that Tris was fond of, and a sensation she got to experience for the first time in a while. Surely Growing Circle was a home, but only a temporary one, and slipping into a bed there was not nearly as fulfilling.  
  


Gazing around her upstairs room, she remembered everything was in the same place it had been years before when she first entered the room. Dresser in the corner, nightstand next to her bed, window framing the beautiful night sky, stars glimmering. 

The only reminder that things were not as they should be was that the stars glowed much more faintly than usual. Tris had not noticed it before while looking at the sky, but now that Niko had mentioned it, their dullness was apparent. 

  
Even though she felt like she was at home, Tris couldn't sleep. It was one of those times that, as much as she liked sleep, she knew she had more important things to do. Specifically, in her mind, she wanted to talk to her companions about, frankly, everything.   
  


She slipped out of her bed and straightened her nightshirt. Tris quickly slid on some sandals and made her way to the stairwell. In the dark, she walked slowly afraid she might hit something. She was almost to the stairs when she walked into something. The something said, "Well, hello, Tris."

  
Tris smiled at Daja through the darkness. "Guess we think more alike than we thought," Tris whispered. 

  
They descended the stairs quietly. Tris fumbled around the room, in search of a candle or lantern, when a bright light shone from behind her, illuminating the whole room. Both Sandry and Briar sat at the table, and Sandry had drawn out her light-crystal. Tris and Daja smiled.

  
"Great minds think alike," Sandry laughed.   
  


Tris slid onto the bench next to her, across from Daja, who had seated herself next to Briar.   
  


"Who woke up who?" Tris asked, leaning her elbows on the table.  
  


"No one woke anyone up," Briar said. "I came down here and I could have sworn I felt I wasn't alone, and when I got closer to the table I saw Sandry, and she was fumbling in her pouch for something. I sat down, and by the time she'd gotten that crystal out, you were here."

  
"Well, then," Daja said, crossing her arms on the table and then laying her head on them. "I think we all know why we came down here. The reason is obvious."

  
"To discuss..." Sandry began.  
  


"Everything," Daja concluded in unison with her friend. She flashed her teeth in a smile, the white against the night. Sandry chuckled.   
  


Sandry went on, "Thank you, yes. Precisely we must discuss everything, starting from where?"

  
"From the beginning," Briar said. "What are all you thinking about this whole plan of Niko's or Raeldro's or whoever's it is?" He ran a hand through his mussed hair.  
  


"I think the first half sounds logical, but I'm not sure about the second half," Tris offered. "The whole idea about the reasoning that the earth fears magical harm to itself is sensible, but I wonder how this plan of replacing the magic will work. If this is a sorcerer's doing, then whoever plans on harming the earth will simply eradicate from it the power we supply it. We then would keep supplying power only to have it taken away by this mage. Eventually, we'd run out of power to give, and then where would we be?"

  
"I think that if the plan doesn't work, we'll stop and change tactics. Niko's smart, and he'd figure it out if the sorcerer kept draining the energy," Daja said. 

"Besides, we don't know who this mage is. It might be some stupid young mage, but still a powerful one, who made a big mistake and accidentally harmed the earth," Sandry added. "They might not still be harming the earth."  
  


"But, Sandry, think about that option. If it was a young mage who made a mistake, the effect would have worn off by now. It's been an entire year in which the earth has been acting strangely. And no mage could have made one accident that caused the earth to tear itself apart for a year," Tris explained. "This is something continuous we're dealing with."

  
"That's right," Briar said. "This ain't Tris trying to put magic into a rock," he said, glancing at her and chuckling. Tris looked down. She remembered that time - she had tried to put the power of the tides into a rock. The rock had exploded and knocked Tris out. Trying to tame the earth wasn't something she would try to do again! 

  
"This is something big, and something that isn't stopping and doesn't look like it'll stop soon," Briar went on after the laughing ceased.   
  


"Did Niko say they'd been looking for a culprit?" Daja asked.

  
"He never mentioned it, but maybe there is a search going on. However, whoever is doing it surely knows they shouldn't be doing this. He or she is probably in hiding somewhere," Tris said.

  
"I wonder about this person," Sandry said. "What are their intentions? And why would they want to hurt the earth? It's stupid to do that. The earth obviously never did anything to them but help them and house them. And especially knowing the earth will kill them if it falls apart, they should stop if they've got any sense!"  
  


"But maybe they aren't wanting to hurt the earth," Briar suggested.

  
"What do you mean?" Sandry asked him.  
  


"Well, maybe they're just trying to get something from the earth and they're doing everything they can to try and get it. They aren't meaning to hurt the earth in the process, but they don't care as long as they get what they want from the earth," Briar pondered. "Make sense?"

  
"I know what you're saying, but I don't think it's sensible still," Sandry said.

  
"Well, that's because it's stupid no matter what, because they still ought to care if they die trying to get what they want. If they die they won't have it anymore, anyway!" Daja sighed. "How much you want to bet that we're against a crazy mage?"

  
"I know it. A crazy or else extremely stupid one. But there aren't any dumb mages in existence. All people blessed with magic but not with sense end up destroying themselves," Tris muttered.

  
"Power just makes people crazy, I guess," Daja groaned. "So, do we want to at least try Niko and Raeldro's plan? I know we sort of said yes to Niko's plan just by coming, but I'm just checking."

  
"Yeah, why not?" Briar said. "Better than doing nothing."

"I agree," Sandry said.

  
"I guess we can try it. But I ... I just kind of wish it was just Niko working with us. I'm never one for strangers, especially very important ones," Tris confused.

  
"Aw, Coppercurls, you being shy?" Briar teased.

  
"No, not shy," snapped Tris. "Just uncomfortable."

  
"I can see where you're coming from, Tris," Sandry consoled. "I personally don't like meeting strangers, particularly at a time like this. But we're just going to have to brush that fact aside, pretend we don't care, and get on with our lives."  
  


"But you're used to it, Sandry. You've spent most of your life in a noble court, being introduced to nobility, doing all the formalities. The rest of us aren't so accustomed to it," Daja said. "But your idea is right. We just have to listen to this Raeldro Earthkin's instructions and then do our work and pretend he's not there."

  
"Well, as long as he doesn't disturb us while we're working!" Tris said. "That's been a peeve of mine."  
  
---  
  
When Daja awoke the next morning, she rubbed her eyes and desperately wanted to go to sleep again. _It probably wasn't a good idea for us to stay up last night as late as we did_, Daja thought, remembering the hours they had stayed up talking on topics from the past to the future. _But I do think we needed that talk._

  
When she sat up, she changed her mind. _We should have done that earlier, though, and gotten to bed before the middle of the morning. Niko won't be happy to have a bunch of tired students!_ Slipping into a pair of fresh clothes, Daja hummed a little tune and tried to blink the sleepiness out of her mind. 

She yawned as she descended down the stairs. Expecting to see no one in the room, she reached the kitchen. When she entered, Sandry, Briar, and Tris all were there cooking breakfast. She snorted with disgust at herself. Daja was normally never the last one up!

  
"Good morning, sunshine," Sandry said cheerily, setting the table. 

  
"How are you so happy in the morning?" Daja asked her.

"How are you so grumpy?" Sandry retorted.  
  


Tris set down a basket of toasted bread. Daja reached out hungrily to snatch a piece, but Tris slapped her hand away.   
  


"You didn't cook. You eat last, or at least wait for the rest of us," Tris scolded.   
  


Daja grumbled something.  
  


In five minutes, the table was laid out with bread, fresh milk, and a large jar of warm oatmeal, along with glasses, bowls, spoons, butter knives, and honey and cream for the oatmeal. They held hands, and Sandry led a prayer, thanking the gods for their food and praying for help in this time of crisis. They had just started on their meal when a knock was heard at the front door. Briar rose to his feet and dashed to the door, sliding in his sandals across the wood.

  
"Good morning, Lark," Briar said, surprised by the visit.

  
"And same to you, Briar," their guest answered, her eyes smiling. "I thought I might come over to help you with breakfast, but I'd forgotten."

  
"Forgotten what?" the young man asked. 

  
"Forgotten you children are grown up now and you don't need me to help you walk, or cook, for that matter," Lark laughed.   
  


"Well, if you'd like to join us, come and sit at the table and we'll get out another bowl for you to have something to eat," Daja offered.

  
"No, thank you. I already ate." Lark grinned. "I've some chores to run. See you at the Hub in a few hours."

  
"You mean you're coming, too?" Sandry asked.  
  


"Yes, indeed," Lark replied.  
  


"Not that we don't enjoy every second of your company, but why? I thought Niko had already started on the dedicates and had them performing the strengthening exercises. That's how it sounded to me, at least," Sandry said.

  
"I have started them, and so have all the other dedicates. Niko just wants me there for moral support," she laughed.  
  


Tris chuckled. "Well, see you at nine o'clock sharp, then, Lark."

  
"Yes, bye for now."  
  
---  
  
At about ten minutes after nine o'clock, the four rushed over to the Hub. They were slightly late, due to the fact that they had been doing chores back at Discipline and had lost track of the time. Now they ran. 

  
They all ran differently. Briar ran with his arms pumping, his stride long, so he took fewer steps. He looked like he was leaping as he ran, his legs going out and then he barely hit ground before he went again. His pants swished as he legs brushed each other. 

Tris held up her skirt, and her feet underneath took little tiny steps as she ran. She gave the appearance of being in more of a hurry than the others, due to how fast her legs moved. Sandry's run was bouncy, her hair and her dress going up and down as she went. 

Daja's stride was long like Briar's, but her legs came up higher, so she looked like a speedy jogger. Because she wore pants, she was able to keep up faster with Briar, leaving Tris and Sandry at the back of the group. 

  
When they got to the Hub, Niko was pacing outside while Lark flicked imaginary lint off her habit and rolled her eyes at Niko.

  
Niko's eyes shot up as the approached. "You're late," he said to them in a tight, clipped voice.  
  


"We're sorry, but we had to finish chores and forgot what time it was," Sandry said sincerely, looking down. Her breath was ragged.

  
"And we aren't that late, not really," said Tris, taking some deep breaths.

  
"Yes, but remember, we are in a situation in which time management is not only important but vital," Lark reminded them. "Don't take time lightly. You all should know the essence of time most of all."

  
"What do you mean?" Daja asked, wiping her forehead with her scarf.

  
"Do you remember when there was that earthquake?" Niko asked the four. They all nodded, their eyes wide. Trapped in a tunnel during an earthquake, the tunnel had nearly caved in on them. They had used their magic to stop the tunnel from collapsing. It had been a very unpleasant and frightening experience.

  
"Well, you remember how every moment mattered. If you hadn't put up your magical protections when you did, the cave might have fallen on you. You know how important time is from that experience, as well from the pirates attacked, from when the fires began in Emelan, and when the plague nearly took Rosethorn's life."

  
Daja blinked. "Niko?" she asked him, "What if that sort of thing happened with the earth? What if we couldn't heal it and it started to fall apart?"

  
Niko informed her, "That sort of thing shouldn't happen. We should hopefully be able to heal the earth before anything like that began happening. but if it did, every moment would matter again, and we would have to work as quickly as possible to stop the earth from ... from dying," Niko said.   
  


Tris shuddered. She didn't like the thought of the earth dying.

  
Briar saw her worried eyes. "But remember, Coppercurls. That isn't a likely thing to happen, because we're going to try and fix everything before any crisis happens. So stop looking so worried." 

  
Tris scowled. "I'm not worried. I was just thinking," she replied. Briar smiled at her knowingly.

  
Niko nodded. "Glad that's cleared up. Shall we begin with our exercises?" 

  
" I want to start as soon as possible as get this fixed!" Sandry said, nodding her head vigorously. The vision of the previous day had impacted her deeply.  
  


The six ascended the stairs of the Hub, meeting where they had the previous day. They did not need to ward the room to keep magic from leaking out, since the Hub was already covered by strong wards for each room, and so they immediately began to meditate. They breathed in to a count of seven, held their breaths for a count of seven, and then exhaled to a count of seven, as they'd always been taught.   
  


Niko was very pleased as he watched them, seeing their strength in them as the meditated. Through the three years that he had not seen them, all four of the young mages had not only grown stronger, but they had perfected themselves in many ways, reaching a level of power that was untouched by older mages. Niko knew also that his "children," as he'd always thought them to be, would surpass him someday in strength, and that day might be soon after they started to train. 

  
After long minutes of mediating, Lark joining them, Niko began to guide them through the exercise that Raeldro Earthkin had recommended. "Relax, and find yourself," said Niko. "Search and feel your life-force pulsing through you." 

As all people do and did, all the teenagers had a life-force, which was different from their magic. Their life-forces were what made them alive. It was like a magic that ran through their veins, a flowing liquid force that gave them life. It was a powerful force and a very big part of what made them themselves. The life force was exactly as the name stated - it was life, vitality, in their bodies.  
  


Briar felt his to be a soft pulsing light, greenish in hue, but more white. Tris' was the same, hers a bluer-white, while Daja's was red-white and Sandry's a tan-white. Lark's was a greenish-yellow-white. But the feeling was the same - it was one of power.  
  


"Now," Niko said, "your magical selves are not within your life force, but they coexist and live on each other. Your life force strengthens itself on your magic, whereas your magic strengthens itself on your life force. The exercise we are about to begin relies on this principle."

  
Niko took a breath. "See your magical power. Imagine it as something that is familiar to you." Briar saw it as a vine; Tris envisioned a storm cloud; Daja envisioned hot metal in her hands. Sandry saw a cloth. Lark saw a loom.

  
"Now, take this object and imagine a similar but smaller object as your life force." Briar saw a different type of vine, one with flowers. Tris saw a normal white cloud. Daja saw a smaller piece of hot copper. Sandry and Lark both saw a thread.

  
"Now, feed your life force into your magical self," Niko instructed.  
  


"What?" cried Sandry. Her eyes shot open to gaze widely into Niko's eyes. The image in her mind was gone. Her sudden noise also jolted the others out of their meditation.

  
"Sandry!" scolded Lark. "What was that for?"  
  


"Niko," Sandry snapped, ignoring Lark, "are you crazy? Are you trying to get us killed? You and I both know as well as each and every person here that if we devote our life forces to our magical selves, our magic will consume us and kill us!" Her eyes were fiery with anger, her chin out straight, and her face flushed pink.  
  


Niko was furious, and his voice showed it. "The life force is a special thing, Sandry. Time, rest, and nourishment will replenish any lost life force. Only when too much is lost at once will a person be unable to replenish themselves. Eventually as one ages, their life force becomes less able to heal itself, and when they totally are unable to heal themselves, they will eventually die. However, we are all at an age in which losing a little life force is not dangerous. After all, our magic feeds our life forces anyway and replenishes it. However, we are coaxing this process alone by slowing feeding in our life forces to our magical selves. The process is, yes, tedious, but in time our magics will be stronger and our life forces will learn to heal themselves more quickly. Raeldro assures me that this is a harmless process that he's used for years, and he would never let me use it on you unless he was certain of this."

He took a deep breath to calm himself. "Now, Lady Sandreliene, if you will let me continue, we can get started," Niko said tersely.

  
Shamefaced, Sandry rocked back on her seat bones and closed her eyes. "Forgive me, Niko. We can go on," she said quietly.

  
Don't fret, Sandry. You merely spoke your concerns, Daja assured her through their thought-speech. During the course of the previous night, they had realized that they were once again able to speak through each other's minds. 

  
Ha! I merely acted rudely, angered Niko, and disrupted our meditation, Sandry protested.

  
Look, it's no big deal. We all mess up. But then we just don't do it again, Briar argued.

  
They're right, Tris put in, though she was mildly vexed at Sandry's outburst. Mistakes happen.   
  


"Stop doing that," Lark said calmly.

  
"Doing what?" Daja asked.

  
"Thought-speaking. Can't you see we're trying to do this exercise?" Lark scolded gently.

  
"How'd you know we were thought-speaking?" Briar questioned.

  
"I can see magic, too, remember? And I can see it happening between you three when you thought-speak," Lark replied.

  
"Oh," Sandry said.

  
"Can't we get on with this?" Niko pleaded abruptly.

  
"Yes, Niko," said Lark with a blush.   
  
---  
  
Back at the house, as the children began to make lunch, the young mages had a few questions for Niko.  
  


"Are you in search for a suspect?" Sandry asked Niko while chopping up some carrots. 

  
"Well, we're on the lookout for one, yes, but more importantly, the idea is to stop this problem soon before it gets out of hand. It would be nice to find this man or woman or group and stop them at the source, but we can't waste time looking - if we do, and we don't find them, by that point we'll all be gone. We have to work with the earth now."

  
Sandry continued chopping carrots. "We'd been reasoning that this mage or group of mages wants power from the earth, but why would they need power?" 

  
"We don't know. But we know they want pure power. You see, the life-force is what this mage is stealing. The life-force, once renamed, is just pure power, power that can be manipulated for a number of life-giving functions," Niko said. He sipped from a glass of juice that Tris placed in front of him. 

  
"Renamed?" Daja asked, pouring a few more glasses of juice.  
  


"Yes," Niko said. "When a person takes the magic of another, or unnamed magic - loose magic that belongs to anyone, which is rare...."

  
"...The magic becomes theirs. It is renamed to be their magic, and it can't be taken by another person unless the mage who tries to take it from them is very powerful. Renaming magic is very important, because it gives a person the ability to claim and keep magic very easily," Tris interrupted quietly, taking dishes from the cupboards. 

  
All eyes turned to her, and she looked at the floor.   
  


"That's one thing I learned at Growing Circle," she said.  
  


"Ah, you're correct," Niko said, smiling. "Tris is right about this renaming. So, this mage has been taking the earth's life-force and renaming it to be theirs. The earth, however, is unable to take back its magic again, because the one who took its magic is too strong and will not give it up."

  
"That's really horrible," said Sandry, putting the chopped carrots into a bowl.   
  


"It is," said Niko.  
  


"But why aren't they taking the earth-magic, the magic that makes things grow?" Tris asked. 

  
"They must not need that type of magic. Even if the mage renames the earth-magic to be theirs, they can still only use it to grow things or manipulate things that nature has already created, whether it is theirs or no. This mage must not need that type of power, and needs just pure power that they can manipulate for a number of things," Niko explained. "That is why they need life-force-magic."

  
"Niko," gasped Daja. She swallowed, stopping mid-pour and setting down the juice jug. "That's what we do."  
  


"What do we do?" Tris asked Daja, hand on her hip.  
  


"We - Briar, Sandry, myself, and Tris - all grow things or manipulate products of nature . And you just said that is what earth-magic does, too. Does that mean we steal and rename the earth's power for ourselves?"

  
"You are exceptional, little mages. You do rename the earth-magic, but it works through you," Niko said.

  
"What?" Briar asked, putting on a pot of water in the hearth to boil. 

  
"You four are a part of the earth. When you work magic, you access and rename earth-magic for yourselves. But unconsciously, the earth allows you to do that, because it knows you work for a good cause to help it. It does good things for you, and you do good things for it," Niko said.

  
Briar stood and paused, hands folded in front of him. "You make us sound like we're important," he said finally.

  
"Well, you are," said Lark, setting the table. She folded a napkin and placed a fork on top of it. "You're important because you are children of earth."  
  


"I like the sound of that," said Sandry, placing the bowl of carrots in the hearth between the coals to warm them. "Children of earth."

  
They all stood there for a moment, eyes transfixed on nothing, staring off. Children of earth! What a honor to have such a name. It was like a dream, realizing the importance that the earth had to them, and them to the earth. And the idea that the earth would trust them enough to let them use its power was overwhelming.  
  
Sandry felt a warm excitement at this idea. Maybe she and her friends would succeed after all. Hope welled up like an overflowing dam. The vision from the previous day consumed her, making her a believer.

  
Niko interrupted. "Did I mention we have another meeting at the same time tomorrow?" he said. "And this will continue for as long as we need to meet."

  
"I suppose then that we'll be here for another month," said Daja, snapping out of her trance.   
  


"Another month?" laughed Lark. "According to Raeldro Earthkin and the rest of the Mage Council, this process could take up to 6 months, if not more."

  
"I didn't think we had that much time," said Tris.   
  


"You're right. At this rate, we don't. But if we can make a little bit of process in the time from now to then, that date may be pressed farther and farther away - hopefully so far away that we won't remember it," Niko explained.  
  


Sandry shook her head. "This is all so complicated!"  
  


"Didn't we tell you a million times that magic is very complicated?" Lark scolded gently.   
  


"Yes," said Briar, rolling his eyes, "you definitely told us."

  
---  
  
The next day, meditation and the exercises progressed very slowly. The exercises were hard and tedious. In order to feed their life-force into their magic, the mages had to do the process very, very slowly.   
  


In the days that followed, the mages worked harder at this process. They could certainly feel their powers growing, but it wasn't by much, and they knew that, too. It was all the more depressing. In a certain sense, the four has expected fireworks and glory in trying a technique used by Raeldro Earthkin. It was so dull and lifeless a technique that it made them want to drop off to sleep. Aside from this, their life-forces, having used them sufficiently during the last few days, were drained slightly, leaving them even more tired and sluggish. In response to this, their days began to start later, and their evenings became cut shorter as they turned in to bed earlier. 

  
Not to mention that chores in the day were really beginning to add up. The house was in need of some fix-ups, since it had not been used in quite a while. The renovations on Discipline, as well as regular daily chores, were taking their toll. Time was wasted on these activities, making weary the four young mages.

The appearance of the young mages showed their tired state. After a week, all four had dark circles under their eyes, were walking very sluggishly, and due to their lack of rest, were unable to even concentrate on their meditations. Niko excused them from their exercises. The teenagers begged and pleaded to let them keep practicing, but he insisted that they rest. The four felt they could not sleep while the world was in danger, but Niko insisted one day's rest would help much more than a practice without progress. That day, the children slept through and continued to sleep well into the night. The much-needed rest contributed to a better performance the next day.  
  


Niko was expecting Raeldro Earthkin to soon be arriving at Winding Circle, though travel was difficult. Since some plates in the earth had shifted, hills and mountains had as well shifted, causing the bridges between them to fall and causing Raeldro to have to detour around to find another way  
to Winding Circle.  
  


And so, Winding Circle waited patiently.   
  
---  
  
It was three weeks later. And Raeldro was coming.

  
The four young mages eagerly rushed around the house, trying to prepare. The plan was that Raeldro would come and take his supper at Discipline and discuss the next steps with Niko and the young mages before their ideas were passed on to Moonstream and the rest of Winding Circle's dedicates. 

  
Sandry rushed through the kitchen, flipping through recipe books to try and make a fantastic meal for Raeldro. Tris was a cleaning wizard, flying through the house with a mop and a dusting rag. Briar worked outside in the newly-planted gardens, trying to squeeze in some magic to help his little plants grow. Daja was trying to repair the loose, rusted door hinges around the house, hoping a squeaking noise could be avoided when anyone walked through the entranceways. 

  
Niko saw them rushing around and shook his head at them. They were so worked up! Laughing, he exited Discipline, headed to see Moonstream. Glares penetrated his back from four insulted young mages.  
  


An hour later, Niko returned with the dullest look on his face as he watched Sandry add some potatoes to the fire.  
  


"Sandry, he's not coming. Save your fanciful dinner!"  
  


Sandry's eyes grew wide. "He's not coming?" she whispered. Her mind screamed in frustration. Three other came in a stampede from various other places in the house: Briar from his room, where he'd been tending the _shakkan; Daja from Tris's room, where she'd been fixing the door hinges; and Tris from just outside, having just returned from the baths. _

  
"What's happening?" Briar asked as he broke through his door. 

I heard you screaming, he said to her in his mind. He did not want to bring up Sandry's reaction in Niko's presence - Sandry was acting calmly, and Briar suspected she wanted Niko to continue to feel she was collected. After her outbreak in the meditation, he knew Sandry was trying to keep herself in check.  
  


Daja and Tris entered at once, their voices clashing and demanding to both be heard. "I heard that someone's not coming," Daja cried, her eyes confused but worried.

  
"Something's wrong?" Tris asked, pushing through the door.  
  


It squeaked, causing Daja to get a bitter expression on her face. After all the time she'd worked on it!  
  


Raeldro's not coming, is he? Tris asked Sandry, looking at her friend's troubled eyes.   
  


No, she said dully, staring at her potatoes. And we all worked so hard!  
  


We worked all day, you're right! Daja whined, fiddling with the end of her staff. That's not right of him to desert!   
  


And your meal, Sandry – I don't want it to go to waste, said Tris to her friend.

  
Well, what should we do with it, then? Briar remarked sarcastically.

  
Shut up, muttered Tris to him.   
  


Sandry sighed inside their minds. That's awful and horrible he can't be here! These are some good potatoes he'll be missing! She laughed then, trying to lighten up.  
  


Why isn't he here? Daja asked for the first time. All four blinked and turned to a stunned Niko. 

  
"Why do you do that?" he asked them.  
  


"Habit," mumbled Tris. "Where is Raeldro, then?"  
  


"More delays. A bridge collapsed right in front of Raeldro, a minute before he was about to step on it. He had to detour," explained Niko.

  
"Gods! Why doesn't the man just build some invisible bridge or carry himself over the gaps, if he's some great mage?" cried Tris angrily.

  
"Maybe he's trying to not waste energy. It's a large task for anyone to carry himself, whatever baggage he has and his escorts across mountains!" Sandry said logically.

  
"I think you must be right," said Niko.   
  


Tris shook her head in disgust. 

Niko gave her a sideways glance, but then returned her attention to Sandry again. "I suppose we'll have to eat what you've started with the meal," he said. "You shouldn't have to throw it out."  
  


Sandry nodded her approval.   
  


"I agree. When are we going to start?" Briar chimed in.  
  
---  
  
"C'mon, Briar!" said Daja, tapping her foot impatiently at his door. "We're going to be late forour meditations today!" She banged her staff against his door. "Let's go!"

  
"Give me a second!" he wailed from inside. 

"What are you doing in there anyways?" Tris called, knocking loudly on the door. "How long does it take you to get ready?" She began to pace a second, the black of her dress brushing the tops of her shoes.  
  


Briar muttered something. The door flew open, and before the girls could even get a look at him, he rushed past them and out the front door. Tris and Daja shrugged and went out after him.   
  


Sandry was waiting outside for them. When Briar ran out, followed by Tris and Daja, she started ahead to the Hub. A vague sniffling noise came from behind her. 

  
Sandry whirled, coming face to face with Briar, her skirts swishing around her. She sighed abruptly. "Oh, Briar, it's that _shakkan again, isn't it?"_

  
He looked up; now the tears were apparent in his eyes. "It's not your business!" he snapped, trying to walk by her.  
  


"It's my business! Very much so!" she said nobly. She reached out an arm to grab his wrist.  
  


"What's going on here?" Daja asked, coming up from behind.   
  


Briar turned to face her and Tris, a menace in his eyes. "I don't want to talk about it!" he said, tears stinging in his green eyes.   
  


"Maybe it will help," said Sandry.  
  


"You can't make me talk about it!" he said, raising his voice. "There's nothing wrong!"  
  


"You're crying," said Tris bluntly.  
  


Briar got quiet a second, and his eyes welled up. He wiped the tears away quickly. He would not - he could not! - allow himself to get so emotional. "It's my _shakkan_," he said quietly, trying to remain calm.  
  


"Getting worse?" said Daja.  
  


"Yes," said Briar. "It's got so many poles around it to hold it up now. Looks and feels real sad."  
  


"Nothing you can do?" Sandry asked.  
  


"Nothing."   
  


"Maybe when Raeldro gets here..." Sandry asked.  
  


"It's the first thing I'm going to do. I'll ask him," Briar said determinedly. He would love to see his _shakkan_ healthy again. And if anyone could save his _shakkan, Raeldro would be that person._

  
Sandry lazily tossed an arm around Briar. "Good. Now, stop moping about. We've got to meditate now."  
  


"I am not moping!" said Briar, in denial. "So don't you tell anyone that I was!"  
  


"Sure, now," said Sandry, dragging him along.  
  


As the four walked to the Hub, Sandry squinted, looking into the distance. Leaning against the wall of the Hub were two people, not one. The first person, she noted, was obviously Niko - she could tell from his salt-and-pepper hair and how he was talking with his hands, gesturing with his fingers. 

The other figure Sandry did not know, but he was young - a few years older than them - and his hair was midnight black, almost with a blue-sheen.

  
"Is that another person I see?" Sandry asked herself aloud.

  
"Who?" Daja asked, looking in the direction Sandry was peering at. 

  
"Niko's talking with some man. Don't you see? They're standing by the wall of the Hub," Sandry said. When Daja failed to see, Sandry pointed to them. 

  
"Oh, that man? I don't know who he is either. He's dressed quite richly," Daja said. She nudged Sandry. "Perhaps Niko's trying to marry you off to a Bag's son, Lady Sandry."  
  


As they neared - and by now Tris and Briar had noted the men as well - Sandry could see the man indeed wore a beautiful robe. The robe itself was black, itself a simple cut and style. However, his sash was a dark gray and very silky, fringed in gold. His robe itself, too, was trimmed in the bright yellowish color. It gleamed around his collar, wrists, and at the lowest hem of the cloth. His single earring also glittered in the sun.  
  


"He looks like a noble's son, indeed," Sandry agreed.   
  


Tris rolled her eyes.  "Well, isn't it obvious who he is?"  
  


"How about you let us in on the secret, Coppercurls?" Briar asked.  
  


"Think!" she snapped. "And look at that man over there. He's wearing a fancy suit, wouldn't you say? And wouldn't the most powerful mage in the land at this time be able to afford such garb? Who else would be able to, besides him?"

"Mages never dress that fancy. You don't dress in that much gold if you're a mage. That's Bags' clothing right there," Briar protested. 

"Didn't Niko say he'd bring Raeldro soon to us, though? He said we'd get to meet him and exercise with him, meditate with him. He'd said Raeldro was delayed, and that was a while ago, so it's obvious he is to arrive soon - or that he is here right now?" 

---

AN: This is all that has been edited. Don't read any more, because I'm going to change it a lot.  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 3

As they reached the Hub, Niko spotted them, and he rushed out to greet them, beckoning to his friend with his hand. The man - Raeldro Earthkin - followed, a silent, somber shadow clothed in black. Now the four could see his robe's fabric - the black cloth - to be of very fine material, smoother and of better quality than anything made at Winding Circle. 

  
_It was probably imported from a different country!_ Daja thought in awe.

  
Raeldro stared at them all intensely, boring into them with his bright hazel eyes that settled softly into his young tan face. His longish jet-black hair, hanging loosely in a same-length cut by his ears, framed his face. His lips were soft, pinkish, unmoving. He stood no taller than Niko, but surely about as tall as Briar. His build was not too strong, but not weak and frail. He hid his hands inside his robe, tucking the hand into the sleeves of the opposite arm and folding them gracefully.

  
"Raeldro, may I introduce the young students?" Niko said, gesticulating with his hands. He began at Briar to the right. "Briar Moss, plant mage."

  
Briar's cup of tea was not formal introductions. When he met someone, he said a simple greeting, and that was it. What was he supposed to say? Surely there was some line in some unwritten book that he should repeat, but he'd certainly never heard of it. 

  
Briar came up and bowed his head slightly. "Pleased to meet you," he muttered. Close enough.  
  


Niko chuckled. "By all means, Raeldro _is_ his name, and I'm sure he'll just have you speak to him as such," Niko put in. "Isn't that right, Raeldro?" The man simply nodded, not even smiling faintly.

  
Briar nodded back, looking eye-to-eye, hazel versus green, at Raeldro. Both looks demanded attention and respect. Briar stepped back.  
  


Niko brought forth Daja. "Daja Kisubo, metal mage."   
  


Eagerly the Trader stepped forth. She blinked twice and took a deep breath to calm her excitement. "Nice to meet you, Raeldro. I'm excited to work with you," she said, tipping her head kindly. The fabric of her green shirt stretched over her back as she moved, revealing taunt, strong muscles and bones. Her voice kept a level of calm and pride. Raeldro again made no noise, and bowed his   
head in response.

  
Does he speak at all? thought Daja to the others as she resumed her place.

  
Perhaps he is mute, Tris pondered.

  
No chance of that. If he'd been mute, we'd have heard of it, Briar protested. I'm placing my bets on laryngitis myself.

  
"And Lady Sandreliene fa Toren, thread mage," Niko said in introduction to the young Duchess.   
  


Sandry's heart was fluttering. Raeldro was certainly the most beautiful creature she'd ever laid eyes on to. His eyes were deep, mystical; his face was thoughtful and handsome. His hair seemed softer than his silk sash.   
  


However, she managed her most graceful and beautiful curtsy, despite her busy heart. "The pleasure is mine, Raeldro Earthkin," she said, sweeping out her faded blue dress and falling almost to her knees in a low dip. She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, smiling in a charming manner. It was not every day one met Raeldro Earthkin. She then in a quick movement dropped her skirts and stood up.

  
Tris rolled her eyes in envy on Sandry's court skills.

  
Raeldro was unmoved by her performance. He nodded again.

  
"And Trisana Chandler, weather mage," Niko finished. Perhaps it was too silly of her, but Tris felt a quiet chill go up her back at that. This was really the first time she had been introduced as a mage by profession. 

Surely, she had met mages at Growing Circle, but this was different. This was a very skilled, very talented mage that she was being introduced to, and now that she was certainly a skilled and talented mage herself, it was as if she were being introduced into a new world. She felt a twinge of regret for feeling cautious of Raeldro, because for the moment, he felt human to her. The feeling, however, slipped away in a moment, leaving her angry and suspicious again.

  
Tris stepped forward, managing a semi-decent curtsy, fanning out the woolen skirt she wore. "Pleased to meet you," she said, her voice devoid of either excitement, fear, shyness, or embarrassment. She nearly sounded unaffected. Perhaps this intrigued Raeldro, because he blinked at her. She lowered down her head, staring at the fascinating bug crawling on the ground. She looked up, but not at Raeldro, and stepped back. Niko's eyes met hers, almost asking a question.

  
A voice broke their eyes and drew their attention. Raeldro, for the first time in the presence of the young mages, spoke. His voice was like leaves rustling, like a cool wind. It was calm and, like Tris's, unemotional. The tone was even, light and yet deep. The sound was steady, melodious, and like music.   
  


"Briar, Daja, Sandry, and Tris. That is what I'm told you are called," Raeldro said in his quiet voice. "I have also been told many other things about you, all of them pleasant. I have been told you are not only very talented, but that you are good-hearted people ready and willing to save our planet. I am honored to be here and work with you."

  
Briar was shocked. His theory had been wrong! The man did speak, and he spoke with such authority and sureness that it reminded him of a thief he once knew. 

  
Niko cleared his throat. "Well, now, how about we head off to Discipline and have an early lunch, if it's not too much trouble? We will continue our exercises this afternoon instead, since we have much to discuss over the meal."  
  


"Of course," Daja and Sandry volunteered simultaneously. Daja smirked at her friend, but Sandry refrained, her proper court manners shining through. Daja, seeing her friend acting like the noble she was, shrugged. 

  
Raeldro smiled, curling up his beautiful pink lips. 

  
"A fantastic idea, Niklaren," Raeldro said. 

  
Ah, not "Niko"? thought Tris to the others. Raeldro obviously does not know our Niko well enough yet. We might have to urge along that process. It would be good to know each other better before we get in too deep.

  
Yes, Sandry agreed. I wouldn't want us to be uncomfortable with Raeldro when we must work together.  
  


Quietly, to Daja only, Sandry thought, He has an absolutely beautiful voice.  
  


Who does? Daja asked back.  
  


Raeldro. His voice is beautiful, Sandry said. I like the sound of it. It's quite musical, like he's singing just through talking. He should talk more, since it's so pretty when he does. His voice sounds so husky and soft. And he demands authority when he speaks. He must be the kind of person that makes people silence just by saying one word.

  
You think? she asked. Her voice was teasing.  
  


Of course! Don't you? Sandry asked, drawn back.  
  


I wasn't really focusing on his voice too much, just on the words he was saying. Isn't that the important part? Daja chuckled.   
  


Sandry was quiet a moment. Perhaps I am the only one who likes his voice.

  
Well, ask Tris. She might agree with you.

   
Well, Sandry thought, I do trust Tris and all, but I don't think she could understand me this time. She's not a person that really understands these things. Sometimes I doubt how much of human emotion she understands, although that doesn't make me think less of her. So I really don't think she could understand this.

   
Sandry, do find him attractive? Her magical voice was stunned. 

  
Excuse me? thought Sandry. Attractive? Certainly not. I... I just like his voice. Her magical voice was firm. 

  
Daja sounded unconvinced. Whatever you say.  
  
---  
  
Now that they were living at Discipline, chores had to be done.The same schedule that they'd always had applied, and it was time for Sandry and Tris to make lunch. Sandry and Tris set out the meal on the table. One plate carried a steaming loaf of bread, fresh from the fireplace, while the other contained a thick, seasoned broth with fresh vegetables. Bowls, napkins and spoons, along with a milk pitcher and glasses, were distributed, completing the meal.

   
Raeldro and Niko were seated on either end of the table as distinguished guests. Briar sat with Sandry opposite Tris and Daja. All joined hands and began in the prayer thanking the gods for the   
meal.   
  


They ended with a chorused, "Thank you." Raeldro's voice seemed to ring out over all the others.  
  


As the soup was distributed with the bread, Niko began a quiet conversation with Raeldro. "Was the land so trashed, Raeldro?" he inquired. "You seem to have had a terrible time getting here."

  
"I did. The conditions were abominable," he said softly while stirring his soup and gazing into it. Daja wondered what he saw there. "Mountains felt like they might crumble under my feet. The dirt was too porous; the air was too humid. Everything seems to be such a mess." He shook his head. "Before, it did not seem to be as pertinent our daily lives. It seems that now, it gets more and more difficult to survive in such conditions."

  
"It always was pertinent," objected Tris.   
  


Raeldro gave her a second glance. "Do you think so?" he asked, his voice lacking emotion.

  
Tris wondered if he was mad at her for challenging a world-famous mage. Or perhaps he was really interested? His eyes seemed lively; perhaps he even cared. "Yes," she said. "At least to me it was very pertinent. When there is something wrong with the weather, something abnormal, it hurts me, too. I feel so tied to it sometimes I wonder where the pain originates, from it or I. But once I realize that the pain is from the weather, all I want as I feel the agony inside it is for freedom for the breezes and tides and storms, not for my good, but for the good of my element. The pain of the weather affects me very much so."

  
"I must agree with her," put in Daja. "The weakness of the metals is passed to me as well. I feel their hurts. It is like a burning heat that I cannot feel from touching the metal. It is on my soul, not my skin."

  
"My plants feel pain when they've been drained of energy. They feel weak, and so do I," Briar put in. "It makes me sad to see them like that. All I want is to help them. I'm sure that's what you want, too." 

  
Sandry nodded. "We trust you can heal our plants, metals, storms, and even threads. They are all parts of us, and part of all the people of this world. They affect all us in many ways, directly or indirectly. Surely you realize this. Our world is in agony. Soon, no one will know the pain of the earth, because it will be non-existent, am I correct?"  
  


"Yes," he said musically.  
  


There was a slight pause after Raeldro said this. "Interesting," murmured Raeldro. "Your connections are very intriguing."  
  


Tris shook her head. His reaction made him seem inhuman, at least in her eyes. Any man who seemed more concerned with things scientifically rather than emotionally was no man at all. Raeldro seemed very, very unattached.

   
"They must be useful to you," he remarked with that same emotionless voice. "Perhaps you'd like to share?"   
  


Sandry jumped to the chance. "Oh, yes," she said, her eyes shining. "They are useful to us, as in we can do many things with our powers. But yet, it is beneficial to our element, because we use it in a positive manner." 

  
"True," said Briar. "When we're working with it, Niko says we're helping the earth to grow and help the earth to balance itself out. We work to help the earth achieve its goal of harmony."  
  


Niko gave Raeldro a sideways glance as the latter's head popped up. "Achieve its goal?" 

  
"Well, yes," Niko said, intervening. "After all, the earth's real desire is to simply live and house us. All it wants is peace. And it allows these young mages to use its power so that these children can work to achieve peace on earth. That's what really makes them important, particularly in this crisis."

  
Raeldro nodded to this. "Niklaren, you are a wise man, and your students are lucky to have you as their master. You are so knowledgeable that you must have made them what they are today."

  
"They are no longer my students," Niko said with a hint of sadness in his eyes. "They have not been my students for three years now. I have no more to teach them, in truth. They have surpassed me in knowledge, I think, even." 

  
"Oh, that's not true, Niko," Daja said. "You always have something to teach us." 

  
"Some things you have taught us are not magical. You have taught us a great deal about our own potential. We continue to learn that, because you have us a chance," said Tris.  
  


"We know the meaning of family now," Briar added.

  
"And all sorts of other great things we can't begin to name," Sandry put in, a wide grin upon her face.  
  


For the first time in years, a blush creeped up on Niko's cheeks. "Could you please pass me a piece of bread, Sandry?" he murmured as his face burned. Sandry did as she was commanded; the topic was dropped quickly, as to not add to the embarrassment of Niklaren Goldeye.

  
The meal was uneventful and involved more chewing than conversing. Raeldro complimented Sandry on the soup, which made the noble go pink with delight. Briar brought down his _shakkan_ near the end of the feast, and Raeldro examined it and gave Briar some plant feed that would give it enough energy to live. Briar could hardly control his gratitude. All Niko could think about were plans, plans, plans. According to him, the rest of the month was planned out, moment by moment. It made Daja want to scream. Was there no such thing as free time anymore? 

  
Raeldro insisted he see the levels of power in the mages. He took turns coming up to them each, laying a hand on his or her head, and measuring up their power. 

  
Tris was uneasy, but she went first to get it over with. His magic was tingly, but surely, it didn't seem evil and her head didn't burst open, so she assumed that the man couldn't be that bad, could he? Raeldro's report was that her power was "astounding." He even smiled at her.

  
Sandry was behind Tris in line. Willingly, she went straight up to Raeldro and closed her eyes and allowed herself to be probed by Raeldro's mind. Was that his magic that felt like sparks, or was it just his touch? His evaluation was also excellent.

  
Daja's evaluation was the same, equally satisfaction. She noted Sandry's eagerness with a worried sort of interest. 

  
Briar agreed to the examination lastly. It was strange to him to see this man - a man, just like him, not even much older - with so much power. _He helped me with my plant, and that's what really matters, Briar thought. _

  
Daja was in charge of clean-up, and she dragged Sandry along to help, since Sandry seemed to only be busy with staring at Raeldro's face. As they made their way to the well for water to wash the dishes with, Daja shook her head. 

  
"Now, what _is_ the matter, Daja?" Sandry said with a sigh. "You've been tsk-ing at me all afternoon."

  
"And you've been staring at Raeldro all afternoon!" Daja huffed. "I thought you just liked his voice, or at least that was what you said this morning. What do you have to say about that?"

  
Sandry stuck her nose in the air. "Nothing! So there!"   
  


"Sandry, if you want to get anything done while he's here, you'd better not be staring at Raeldro the entire time. Don't you understand?"

  
Sandry abruptly turned to Daja. "Was it that obvious?" she asked, her voice desperate.  
  


"Yes, it was. Perhaps even Niko noticed." They had reached their destination, so Daja bent over to crank a bucket down deep into the cavernous hole in the well.

  
"Niko? Oh, how dreadfully embarrassing. I must watch that sort of thing from now on, mustn't I?" Sandry said, setting down her buckets.

  
"There won't be a next time. And don't fret so much. I'm exaggerating. I don't think Niko noticed. The point is that you can't goggle over Raeldro. He came to work with us, not be stared at," Daja reminded her friend. The bucket below splashed into the water. 

  
"Oh, goodness, spoil all the fun, won't you?" Sandry said laughingly. She made to sit down gracefully in the grass, but a streak of green appeared on the fabric nonetheless.

  
"Oh, cat dirt!" muttered Sandry as Daja chuckled. 

  
"You're acting really... unlike yourself, I suppose, _saati," Daja commented. Her face looked almost put off._

  
"Oh, Daja!" came the indignant protest. "I am most certainly not. What reason would you have to think that? Hmph!"

  
"You some much more silly. Have you lost your common sense?" Daja chided, reeling in the heavy bucket. "Shall I blame your attraction to Raeldro?"

  
"I told you ... I just like his voice." 

  
"And the heavy sighing?" Daja said with a grunt as she cranked the wheel.

  
"Is it a crime to sigh?" Sandry responded, unable to come up with an answer. 

  
"And I saw you flutter your eyelashes at him twice. Who knows how many times you did it when I wasn't looking!" Daja argued. "I'm not a proper lady. But I do know that fluttering your eyelashes at someone is something you do to flirt. I figured out that you find him attractive, Sandry, but I never thought you would try to flirt with him!" She grasped the bucket and yanked it up to sit on the edge of the well's stone wall. 

  
"I most certainly am not flirting!" Sandry gasped, clearly shocked. "And I am not attracted to him. It must just be a subconscious thing."

  
"Well, that's good, because he surely wants no love affair while he's here. He came strictly to work, I'm sure, and I bet he won't let anything diverge him from the task ahead," Daja said reasonably. She poured the large bucket's contents into her two smaller buckets.

  
"You think?" Sandry said. Daja noted the hint of disappointment in her voice.

  
"Sandry! You are attracted to Raeldro," Daja said. "And we both know that if you argue, I'm just going to throw more evidence in your face, and I'm betting you don't want that. Anyway, it's your turn with the well, Sandry."

  
At last getting up from the ground where she had fallen, Sandry rose and headed over to the well, letting down the bucket slowly. "What does it matter if I'm attracted to him, anyway?"

  
"I don't know, but – you hardly know the man, Sandry. And he hardly knows you. To him, you're a girl who is 5 or 6 years younger than him, someone whom he's just met, and someone who is, let's face it, inferior to him in power, as we all are. I don't know if you're his... his type."

  
"Type? Age? Since when did you become the love expert?" Sandry chuckled. 

  
"I'm just guessing," Daja said with a smile. "But I have some brains to back it up."

  
"It takes more than brains to give _me _love advice, Daja. Since when do you know something about love?" Sandry asked as the bucket hit the water deep inside the earth. "What gives you such intuition?" she laughed.

  
"Well, let's just say I learned more than how to make doors in Hajra," Daja said. Her voice was very steady. 

  
Sandry entirely dropped the crank, letting the bucket she'd been pulling up drop with a plopping sound back into the water. She whirled on her friend, her eyes wide but a small smile gracing her face. "Daja! Why didn't you...who and what... tell me...what happened?" she stuttered. 

  
Daja smiled and her face flushed. 

  
"What sort of romance happened in Hajra, Daja?" asked Sandry, her bright eyes widening as she stepped closer to Daja. Daja's face flushed more. Sandry was about to throttle Daja until the truth came out, but them Daja spoke.

  
"Kirel and I ..." 

  
"Kirel?" Sandry cried with a gasp. 

  
"Would you let me finish?" Daja interrupted before Sandry could finish her dramatics. Sandry hushed. 

"As I was saying," Daja continued, "the day before we left to come back here, we were loading up all of our stuff into a wagon. Frostpine ran off to fetch something he'd ordered to be made in the city - a new tool. Kirel and I were alone. We were talking ... and he kissed me."

  
Sandry squealed. 

  
"Shush, now," Daja scolded. "Like I was saying, we started going over all sorts of memories together. He told me he'd always admired me...and he kissed me. Just once." Daja quickly reached out to cup a hand over Sandry's mouth, muffling the light giggle. 

  
"So why didn't I hear about this?" Sandry said before Daja's hand was partway off her mouth.

  
Daja said with a shrug, "Nothing ever came of it. He never kissed me again – it would be like having affections for Briar, for someone like a brother. I wasn't going to tell anyone about such a little thing. But – well, you're Sandry. You can know, as long as you don't tell a single soul. Not even Briar and Tris can know, though I hate to hide secrets from them. Briar would tease me terribly." 

  
"Oh!" giggled Sandry, making a zipping motion over her lips. "No talking from me!" She paused. "But how does that give you intuition to advise me?"

  
"My attraction to Kirel was so much due to our similarities, things we shared. But what could you and Raeldro talk about?" 

  
"Lots of things," said Sandry, flopping on the grass and hugging her knees to her chest. The well was entirely forgotten. "Like magic."

  
"That's one thing, Sandry," reasoned Daja, sitting down beside her, her legs crossed. 

  
"Well, I can't think of more right now."

  
"You have to have something to be able to relate to him by!" Daja said.

  
"Daja, are you trying to tell me something?" Sandry asked, her eyes turned to the sky. "Do you mean that I can't love him because we're too different? Because doesn't it only matter if you love him how he is and he loves you how you are? I don't have to be a great mage like Raeldro to love him!"

  
"No, you don't, Sandry. But let me tell you this - you have to love a person for being himself, but you have to know him to start off. I know Kirel. I lived a life with Kirel for three years – sharing meals, and working together constantly. I know him well. You don't know a thing about Raeldro, except that he has a beautiful voice. How could you love him, a stranger? How could you be there for him?"

  
"But I could be there for Raeldro," said Sandry. 

  
"I don't know about that," said Daja. "After Raeldro's finished with us, he'll be traveling all around the world doing whatever he does. Are you willing to follow him across the globe?" 

  
"Maybe," Sandry said with half a sigh.

  
"Sandry!" Daja cried, gripping her shoulders. "You met this man a few hours ago! Certainly you wouldn't chase him around the world for all your life." 

  
"No," Sandry said, sitting up as Daja backed off. "I wouldn't, of course not. He's only one man of many in the world, and I couldn't give up Winding Circle for a man. This is just a silly fling after all, like the others I've had!" Sandry laughed unexpectedly. 

  
"Good to hear it. But just remember, you have to know a man's life in order to make something out of a relationship," Daja said.

   
Sandry fell forward onto her stomach, resting her chin in one hand. "Was it nice to kiss Kirel?" she asked, looking at the Hub glistening in the sky. 

  
"I liked it," Daja said. "But that was my moment. I can't tell you any more, because I want to keep as much of it between Kirel and I." She picked at a blade of grass. 

  
"Why?" Sandry asked, giving her a glance sideways. 

  
"Do I look like a gossip to you? No. I keep my privacy a bit. I wouldn't want my affairs all over the place, especially if they're affairs that are done and over with," Daja said and laid next to her in the same manner. 

  
"You certainly have become so sensitive!" chuckled Sandry as she rolled over. "Have to be so romantic!" she squealed. Her hair fanned out around her as she gazed into the sun, her eyes not even stinging. It seemed to dance in her eyes.

  
"I guess it made me see things a bit differently," Daja snorted. "Goodness, I hear crickets. Is it so late already?" she asked rhetorically, stretching her arms over her head.

  
"I suppose so," Sandry mumbled. She gave a glance to the well and the buckets, then up to the sky again. Her eyes diverted quickly again to the buckets.

  
"Oh!" Sandry cried as she shot up from her place. "Dishes! We have to go wash dishes at Discipline!" she yelled, grabbing Daja's arm and pulling her up.

  
"Oh, gods, we're late!" Daja gasped, stumbling to her feet as she remembered their task. 

  
Sandry laughed nervously. She began to crank up the bucket that had been floating in the waters of the well. The clicks of the wheel fired in quick succession.

  
Sandry tugged up the heavy bucket and poured it clumsily into her own buckets while Daja scrambled for her own. Lifting them up, she motioned with a tilted head to Sandry to hurry up. Sandry ran after Daja, spilling her water from the buckets in her hands, as they scampered towards Discipline.

  
They made quite a pair heading back to Discipline. There was Sandry, dressed in a nice blue grass-stained dress which fanned out as she walked. She tilted back and forth as she walked with her buckets, her body trying to balance out the weight. Daja's stride was long and more forceful, and she carried her buckets with greater ease as she towered over her friend. They were quite opposites; but Daja had been right - they had shared a life together and knew each other, and that allowed such different people to love one another.  
  


---  
  
It was a few days later. Niko and Raeldro, as well as Lark and Rosethorn occasionally, had been joining the young mages in their daily power-building exercises. However, the day before, Niko had given a day's break to them so that he and Raeldro could make plans about tracking the culprit of the attacks on the earth.   
  


Now, the four were making breakfast, preparing to go to the Hub for their usual daily meeting, when there came an interruption bursting into the cottage.

  
"Chore day!" Lark squealed as she opened the front door to Discipline.  
  


"What?" muttered a sleepy Tris.   
  


"Niko gave you guys the day off again," Rosethorn offered. "He and Raeldro had some business to discuss of some sort, so you get a day to fix up Discipline."  
  


"Why do we need to fix it up?" Sandry asked. "It's fine to me. We have all we need."  
  


Lark sighed. "Sandry, you told me yourself 'the place desperately needs to be dusted and swept for a good while to get it really clean.' Not to mention the daily chores!"

  
"Plus," offered Rosethorn, "you all will have to re-thatch the roof sometime soon. You'll be staying a little while, probably through the rainy season, and I don't think any of you want the rain to leak in."

  
"The shutters need painting," Lark said.

  
"There isn't a steady amount of supplies here. You all have to run to the Hub every day to get stuff!" Rosie growled. "It's a waste of your time. Get it all at once, or you might as well not get it at all!" 

  
"She's right," Lark commented. "Plus some of the hinges on the cabinets are slightly rusty, Daja..."

  
"Alright!" Briar snapped. "We get the picture! Lay off, would you?"  
  


Rosie was about to retort when Lark stopped her. "We're all a little edgy under pressure, now."  
  


Rosie rolled her eyes and walked past Tris, who was setting rolls onto the breakfast table. The dedicate snatched one and fed it to a hungry Little Bear at their feet.  
  


Tris grumbled. She set down the meal and let everyone take their fill. After all, it would be a long day ahead.  
  
---  
  
Briar had never done so much cleaning in his life. He had previously not had any idea how much grime a house could have. His dirty rags betrayed the secret. He was weary from so much dusting and mopping before midday, and he still had to make space in the attic for new supplies. That would be an interesting task; he'd never really explored up there, but he was wondering if he'd have the chance to before the sun set and it got dark. He felt disgustingly tired as he crawled to the table as the Hub struck twelve.

  
Sandry, on the other hand, had never even thought that the house used so many sheets. There were quilts and there were sheets; there were towels and there were dishrags and there were mopping rags. And she had to wash all of them, even the ones that had been stored in the attic. She couldn't believe that they were going to be needing all of them. They made an overwhelming pile that wasn't halfway done by mealtime. She staggered, smelling of soap, to the kitchen.

  
Tris wasn't much of a painter, but Rosethorn had insisted that she take up the duty of painter for the day. The shutters really did need a good paint job, though Tris really considered that despite all her efforts, they didn't look more than average. But at least the house would look somewhat lived in on the outside. It wouldn't qualify as decent, however, until that horrible roof was re-thatched. It was falling to pieces. Though not half as tired as the Bag and the thief, she was feeling drowsy as she headed to eat.

  
Daja had gotten the oh-so-pleasant job of washing the morning dishes and a few rusty pots. She cleaned them up and made them look nice before doing a thorough job of fixing up the privy. Daja made extra checks to be sure the structure was sturdy and as comfortable as a latrine could be. Then, she washed up and made a nice thick broth soup for the meal and tried to be cheery as her friends dragged themselves lazily through the doorway. She grumbled, knowing her work that afternoon wouldn't be as light as the morning, and that her friends would probably have the chance for a break instead.

  
After everyone hurriedly devoured the scrumptious meal, they all set off for more chores. Rosie came back from doing some work at the Hub and instructed Briar to not snoop unnecessarily in the attic. Briar grunted his agreement and headed with a thud up the stairs. He was 18 years old, and he was still getting himself bossed by Rosethorn! 

_I'm still no better than a kid, still, even after these years_, he thought to himself ironically.

  
Rosethorn and Lark had been working elsewhere for the morning, but they spent the afternoon laboring at Discipline. Lark spent time folding the laundry that Sandry had done that morning, now that they were dry on the clothesline. She also organized her small workroom.  
  


Rosie went digging through the garden, tending to the sad seeds that Briar had previously planted. She labored in the garden, giving the small seeds fertilizer in the hopes that they might grow.  
  


Sandry continued washing that afternoon, gloomy and wet from spilled waters. But she was able to get all the wash done before the sun went down, so she went up the stairs heavily and dried herself off. She changed to a light green dress that was immaculately clean and climbed to the roof, where she sat and watched the sun fall over the horizon, dreaming about the way the trees and winds moved within the city. 

  
Daja went around for the rest of the day looking at all the doors and cabinets and windows, checking for loose hinges or latches or such. Unluckily, she found some, and she fixed them manually, magic-less. This was probably less draining that wasting all her energy on such a tiny, simple task, but she felt like lead being dragged against the floor. Daja glared at the doors with contempt and headed to change into something less hot after all her chores were complete.

  
Tris's tasks were not complete either after the meal. She had three more shutters to paint before she had to run to the Hub to fetch supplies to be stored in Briar's hopefully cleared attic. She carried her first bundle up the stairs, wondering why they had to be up on the top floor. Briar was nosing in boxes when she arrived up to her destination, but he had cleared a small space for her goods.   
  


"I have lots more, so you'd better hurry up and make some more room," she ordered him. With that, she exited the room and rushed in a flurry down the steps. 

  
Briar groaned with frustration. _Why did she have to interrupt me? This is very interesting!_ he thought. There were all sorts of oils and vials wrapped with cloth stored in there. He recognized some of them as medical stores. Of course, Rosie had tossed some of the supplies for the plague in the attic. That way, if she'd ever wanted to make any medicines at home after her work hours, she had been able to. However, that had been years ago! 

_And she never cleaned them out. Left me to do it, too_! he thought huffily, stacking up more boxes.  
  


Tris ran errands to the Hub and other shops, bringing all the supplies that Lark and Rosie had suggested, plus other things she and her friends thought to be needed. Daja had made her fetch some more nails and screws in case she needed them anytime. Her stash was used up, but the rest of the supplies that Daja owned were all packed away with Frostpine's goods. He was neglecting to unpack them, still uncertain how long the stay would be. Tris had personally requested new slates, since the old ones were so marked up that the words written on them were barely legible. 

Briar wanted seeds for Rosie's dead garden, as well as more of the plant food that Raeldro had requested. His _shakkan was very pleased with the nutrition, and Briar was glad to see it happy. He wanted to get more of the miracle-food before anyone else did. _

Sandry needed thread. It was always what she needed.   
  


Briar was picking at bit of expensive looking stones in a mirror when Tris came back with the last few crates. Tris watched him skip back and set it down as she hurried through the room, bearing two large crates. Tris shook her head. Now the young man was trying to rob stones off of a mirror that might have belonged to Rosethorn for all they knew. He was sly, and he knew it, too.

  
"There are five more outside the front door. Help me," she said without looking at him. Tris merely set them down and was gone out the stairway in a blink.

  
Briar followed grudgingly and exited the room, following Tris down the stairs and out of the house. He looked up enviously at the roof, where Sandry and now Daja sat lazily as the sun vanished behind the skyline. He grunted and hefted up the packages that Tris had left for him. He dumped them in the attic once he got there and shut the door behind him after he clambered up to the roof. Tris was already there, her eyes closed as she felt the wind all over.

  
Briar retreated to the chimney, leaning against it. He examined a chip of a stone that he had managed to pick off. It was like a ruby, but more purple. It gleamed in the light that reflected off the clouds, which made it look quite pretty. He smiled and tucked it into a small pocket.

  
Daja and Sandry were conversing quietly. It was obviously girl-talk, and Briar had no desire to join them.

  
"You're obsessed. We talked about this, remember, _saati?" Daja reminded her._

Sandry gazed at the sky with glazed eyes and sighed.  
  


"No obsessions. I won't let you get caught up like that," Daja continued.

  
Sandry nodded to her and picked at a piece of straw. "I'll keep calm and I won't mention it again, Daja. I'm sorry. I'm just going through a little fancy once again. You've been very good by keeping me on my toes, and for putting up with my antics for this while," she said, giving her friend a smile.

  
Daja laughed. "Well, I'll tell you one thing, Sandry," she added. "You don't set your sights low, do you? You have to go for the most revered mage in the land, right?"

  
"Only me!" giggled Sandry. Her eyes flitted over to Briar. "Hey, kid. I have a question for you."

  
Briar opened a sleepy eye. He had been snoozing. "Keep me out of your girl-talk, Bag. Can't you see I'm aiming to get myself some well-earned shut-eye?" he mumbled.

  
"This is important!" she squealed, crawling over to him and tugging at her friend's pant leg. 

  
He rubbed his eyes. "Fine. I'll answer your question if you stop touching me!" he growled.

  
Sandry grinned, proud of her persuasion efforts. "You're a boy. You should be able to answer a question for me, hmmm?" she asked. "I need to see this from a boy's point of view." 

  
"I knew you gits were blabbing some girl-talk. Fine, spill it, Sandry."  
  


She paused. "What do you think about love?"

  
"I _don't_ think about it," he said at her with narrowed eyes. 

Sandry shrugged and tugged her hair. "Well, then, answer me this at least. Say you have a little girl who's about five years younger than you. She might be slightly silly, but she's generally a nice girl. But she isn't a very good mage like you, and she's not quite so educated or the like. But she's in love with you. What would you do?"   
  


He rolled his eyes. "Where do you make up these unrealistic situations?" Briar groaned. "I thought you said this was important!"

  
"It is!" Sandry squealed. "Just answer!"

  
"And it might be more realistic than you think," Daja said to herself. She wasn't sure if Briar heard her, but he did raise an eyebrow at her, so that gave her good reason to think he might have.  
  


Briar sighed. "I suppose I'd give the girl a chance to at least make her point. I wouldn't blow her off right away, but that doesn't mean I could really make something from her. But just 'cause I'm a good kid." He winked at her, obviously being sarcastic. Sandry laughed.

  
"So, who're you chasing, Bag-girl?" he asked her. Her face straightened.

  
"I won't tell you, Briar!" 

  
"Sure is. You were asking me those questions for a reason, and you know it." He grinned smugly at Sandry, leaning back and crossing his arms. He was going to be a persistent brat, and Sandry knew it.

  
"I... I wasn't! I just was curious, it's all!" Sandry cried.

  
"Shut up," Tris snapped at them. She was twisted around to face them, her stormy eyes glaring angrily into theirs. "I am trying to sleep.  What about that do you people not understand?" She huffed and laid down again.

  
Briar and Sandry both quieted while Daja snickered. Sandry glared at him and whispered, "Don't mention this again!" Briar shrugged, hardly caring, and ran a hand through his hair. 

  
"Now, if you'll give me some peace, ladies, I'm going to take a nap, so keep it quiet!" he said firmly, closing his eyes promptly and relaxing against the chimney.

  
Daja sighed and turned from him, facing Sandry. "You know," she said quietly as to not disturb her resting friends, "if you wanted to try and see things from Raeldro's point of view, Briar might not be the best boy to ask."

  
"Why?" Sandry asked, pulling her hair behind her ear. "He's a boy. He should know."

  
"But whether he should know and if he actually knows are two very different things. This is Briar, who is about as romantically inclined as a vulture," Daja reminded Sandry with a giggle.  
  


"Well, we never know for sure," Sandry put in. "For all we know, Briar might have had some romantic relations back at his little facility in the Stepping Stone Islands. Perhaps he just never mentioned it. You never mentioned Kirel to me until just recently, after all."

  
"Briar? Romantic relations? You've got to be joking. This is Briar!" Daja laughed.   
  


"It is strange, isn't it?" Sandry murmured. "To be thinking of each other having relations outside of our little circle is so strange. But I guess we can't be attached at the hip all of the time. We need to have contact with people outside of us four if we want to survive in the world."

  
"Of course," Daja said. She paused. "Sandry, why did you ask Briar that, anyways?"

  
"I wanted to see it from a boy's point of view."  
  


Daja rolled her eyes. "Obviously! But why do you even care?"   
  


"I was curious!" said Sandry, slightly defensive. "I know that you don't think it's a good idea to go chasing after him, because it wouldn't be anything permanent and I probably wouldn't get anything back in return. But, well, I just wanted a second opinion. Seems Briar thinks it's not at all hopeless, though."

  
"If you had told him the guy was Raeldro, he might have said differently!" Daja warned.

  
Sandry dropped her head with a defeated sigh. "I know!"   
  


Tris turned behind her. "Can you talk any louder?" she hissed sarcastically. "I can hear every word you're saying."

  
Sandry's eyes widened. "You can?"   
  


"Yes. But I'm not concerned in your love life, Sandry," Tris muttered. "Raeldro?" she added quietly. Her left eyebrow was raised.

  
Sandry went a few shades redder in her face. "I have reason. He's very nice, and he's talented." 

"He's old, and he's creepy," Tris corrected her. "Get over him." She turned back to her place and settled down to sleep.

  
"'Old and creepy'?" shrieked Sandry, her facial color changing again. 

  
"Well, you wanted a second opinion. And you've even got a third now!" Daja said with mock enthusiasm.  
  


Sandry placed her head in her hands. "My life is over," she said sullenly. "No one approves of my love interest, my friends are poking fun at me, and my planet is on the verge of destroying itself. Could anything be worse?"  
  


Briar opened an eye. "You could still have more chores to do, too."  
  


"You're listening, too?" she moaned. "Great, now everyone knows." She flopped back.  
  


"What's so bad about that?" Tris asked. She wasn't looking at anyone, only the sky, but she was involved enough in the conversation to put in a few words. "It's not like we ought to keep secrets anyways."  
  


"It isn't a secret," Sandry protested. "I'd rather call it a ... a fact that I'm simply self-conscious about and don't want to share it with the world!"  
  


Daja shrugged. "Well, we know now. And we won't tell anyone, honest. Right?" She glared at Briar and the back of Tris's head. Briar nodded. Tris made a sort of grunting noise in agreement. Sandry leaned over to Daja and thought-spoke to her, Well, perhaps you ought to tell them about your love experience, Daja!

  
Do you really think so? I don't. It's a thing of the past. And, besides that, I doubt either of them care! Daja replied to Sandry.

  
"If you have something to say, say it to everyone," Briar scolded. Daja and Sandry rocked back, silent.

  
"If that had something to do with you and Kirel, Daja, I already know. Your voice traveled on a breeze right to me room yesterday evening when you were talking about him with Sandry," said Tris blatantly.  
  


"You sneak!" gasped Daja. 

  
"Look, I didn't ask to hear it," said Tris, her voice nonchalant. "It just happened."

  
"Kirel? What happened with Kirel?" Briar asked. He was confused, as he hadn't heard what Tris had.

  
"Nothing!" stammered Daja. She was abashed, for once in her life, and Sandry was snickering beside her. Briar glanced at them both and nudged Daja with his foot. "Tell me. No secrets."

  
Daja sighed, won over. "He and I… well, we sort of developed affections for each other in Sotat," she told him.

  
Sandry nodded, humming in agreement. "Let's not be modest, Daja. 'Sort of' doesn't cut it."

  
"From what I heard, they were very, very attracted to each other in Sotat," Tris added. "So much to..."

  
Daja interrupted her mid-sentence. "No more!" Daja protested, but Tris had already said it.  
  


"...Share a few kisses while Frostpine was out one day. Isn't that right?" Tris said evilly.

  
"Yes, yes, but – it was only one kiss, Tris," admitted Daja. "Now drop it. It isn't anything, really, okay?" She leaned back and gazed at the sky. "We're growing up," she said bluntly. "We experiment with romance. And then it ends. That's all. We're just growing up." 

  
"Sure are," Sandry added. "We had jobs over these last few years. We took on a lot of responsibility. And we're taking on a lot of responsibility now, working with Raeldro Earthkin and such. We've grown stronger, and smarter."   
  


"We made new friends on our adventures. But we also made stronger bonds with those we already had," Tris put in.

  
"We all got closer to our teachers. Rosethorn was supportive of Briar working at his facility. Frostpine and Daja were always together. Sandry was able to write to Lark all the time, just like I was always writing with Niko."

  
"And now you two girls are falling in love." Daja glared at the back of his head, but he went on, regardless. 

"If that isn't a sign of growing up, what is?" Briar suggested. He gave a small chuckle and added, "Next thing you know, we'll all be married off with kids of our own!"

  
"And what happens then?" Daja asked quietly. "If that does happen ever, what's going to happen to us? It just wouldn't be the same."

  
"Things would be very different," Sandry murmured. "We probably wouldn't have as much of a chance to see each other any more. We'd have to get big money-making jobs to try and earn a living for our children. We might drift apart, even, and lose each other in the midst of our spouses."

  
"No. It won't ever happen," said Tris, shaking her head. "After all we've been through, do you really think we ever could drift apart? Of course not. And, besides, I don't know about any of you, but I'm certainly not planning on getting married and having children any time soon!"

  
"Neither am I. We're just barely kids ourselves. How can we have our own kids?" Briar snorted.  
  


Sandry nodded. "Briar's right. We're not ready to have kids!" She went pale. "Do you know how strange it sounds to eve _say that?"_

  
Tris chuckled. "Sandry, I bet you'll be the first one to have kids, just because of that."

  
Sandry blushed. "I hope you're wrong. Actually, I hope we're all wrong. Sometimes, I wish ... I wish we could stay just like this, just how we are right now, when it's just the four of us."

  
There was a quiet silence as everyone glanced around. It really was peaceful. The four were relaxed, carefree as the breezes that ruffled their hair. The sun was shining down on the temple city, and everything really did look perfect, with the shops in a bustle and the Hub clock's hands moving steadily. For a moment suspended in time, heaven descended to the earth for the four young mages.

  
Daja smiled. "I wish the same thing."

  
"I don't need anything more." The speaker was Tris. "Just the sky dotted with clouds, the cool breeze, the nice temperature..."

  
"Are you four going to make your own dinner, or do we have to do it for you?" Rosethorn screamed from downstairs. "You're either going to make your meal on your own or make me force you into it! I thought you four had gotten more responsible than this!"

  
"...And Rosethorn yelling at us from the bottom of the stairwell," Briar added. "C'mon. I don't want to find myself hanging from my ears over the well." 

  
Daja and Sandry sat up and groaned. "Briar, it's your turn to make dinner tonight," Sandry said. "Gods bless us." 

Briar was about to say something nasty, but Daja saved her friend from the thief-curses. "Oh, I'm helping him. It won't be bad," stated Daja defensively. "Tris? Aren't you coming?"   
  


"Yes. I'll be down in a moment."

"Alright," said Daja. "But don't blame us if Rosie tans your hide because you're late." With that, the other three descended down the stairs. 

Tris stared up at the sky. _They're right,_ she thought to herself. _We are all growing up. Why does that even sound so strange to hear? Of course we knew we'd grow up all along. But now, this isn't just kids becoming teenagers. This is teenagers becoming adults, and I don't think I'm ready. I don't know if any of us are ready. I'm not fit for responsibility, for a job, for a family, for a house and a place to call my own, not yet! I'm only fit to be me, Trisana Chandler, just how I am right now. If I only could remain this age for the rest of my life, I wouldn't have to go out and become an adult, a woman!_

Tris couldn't even think of herself as a "woman." She was a girl. She thought of herself as the same girl who'd come to Winding Circle years and years ago.   
  


"Come down here, Tris! It's your turn to set the table!" commanded a firm voice from the stairs.  
  


"Yes, Rosie," muttered Tris. She rolled up from her place and headed for the stairs, clunking down the stairs in her shoes.  
  


---  
  
Tris' eyes opened, but she closed them again, for the light in them was unpleasant. She knew she had to get up, but she really didn't feel strong enough to stand. She was fully exhausted. However, she forced herself to roll out of bed and walk to her dresser. Tris picked up a hankerchief and tied back her hair with it. She snatched up her spectacles and set them on her nose. Then, she opened her door and made her way down the stairs.  
  


In the kitchen, Sandry was rushing around from counter to table, laying out porridge and honey and cream. Rosethorn assisted her. Lark laid out bowls and utensils on the table. Daja came stumbling down the stairs after Tris, her eyes still mostly closed. 

  
"Where's Briar?" Daja asked sleepily.  
  


"Well, good morning to you!" Sandry said, getting the milk from the cold box. "He's sleeping still. Someone should wake him so he doesn't miss breakfast."

  
"Or we could let his miss it," a grinning Rosethorn offered. "It might encourage him to wake himself up tomorrow if he missed breakfast today."  
  


"Well, I don't want the poor boy to starve," Lark laughed. "I'm not that cruel. Tris, could you go wake him up? I feel Daja is a wee bit unsuited for the job." She motioned to Daja, who was wearily leaning on the table and dozing.

  
"Fine," Tris said. "He better not be grouchy about getting woken up, though."

  
Rosethorn snickered, "You're one to talk." Tris scowled and headed to Briar's room while Lark shushed Rosethorn. 

  
When Tris opened the door, she noted Briar's room to be much cooler than the kitchen. The cause was the fact that his window was open, letting cool breeze in. Her eyes traveled around the room. His dresser had incorrectly folded clothes on it, along with herb-lore books. The wood floors were as clean as hers. The _shakkan_ sat on the windowsill, obviously enjoying the breeze. His sleeping mat laid nestled in the corner, and it contained a pillow, sheets, and a sleeping Briar Moss.  
  


Tris laughed softly. Briar was snoring. Not very loudly, but he was snoring nonetheless. 

  
She approached his sleeping mat, which was more like a mattress laid on the floor. Briar stirred a little at her movement, but he only rolled over, facing her, and then he stilled and snored again. Now Tris laughed outright.

  
She fell to her knees in front of his mat, about to shake his shoulder and disturb his slumber. She reached out a hand, but she paused midway before touching him. He looked so peaceful that she really didn't want to disturb him. His hair was slightly mussed, the small curls falling to brush his forehead. His eyes were closed, the lashes brushing the skin beneath them. His cheeks were slightly colored, as he'd spent the last few days mainly in the sun. His lips were slightly parted, just barely, and he breathed through them; his chest rose and fell under the sheets. Tris smiled. Briar looked good, even in the earliest morning.

  
Tris knew she did have to wake him, unfortunately. If she didn't, an irritated Lark or Rosethorn would come in, and that would make an interesting situation! 

  
"Briar," said Tris, patting his shoulder. "Briar, you have to wake up."

  
Briar grumbled something, but, try as she might, Tris couldn't figure out what he had said. Instead, she tried again, and the same response resulted: he mumbled a few words but didn't wake up.  
  


"Briar!" Tris cried, now shaking him. "Get up!" 

  
With that, Briar awoke with a start, his green eyes snapping open to stare into Tris' grayish ones. He blinked twice, then asked, "Am I in Winding Circle?" He was staring up at Tris, who was leaning over him. She looked quite intimidating from that angle.

  
Tris rolled her eyes. "No! You're the middle of the forest!" she said sarcastically. Then, in case he took her seriously in his drowsy state, she added, "Of course you're in Winding Circle." She shook her head. "C'mon, get up, Briar. It's taken long enough to rouse you. I've been in here so long trying to wake you that breakfast is probably cold by now."

  
"How long have you been in here?" Briar asked Tris. He pulled himself up to sit, his blankets still around him.

  
She replied, "Maybe ten minutes." She paused. "Why?" she continued. "Is something the matter with that?" Her voice sounded tight, as if she were slightly vexed.  
  


"No, it's nothing." What he didn't want to tell her was that he'd been having an awfully strange dream - and she'd been in it!

  
"Well, you'd best come out now to get a bite to eat, before it all gets taken by someone else," Tris advised. "C'mon."

  
Briar literally rolled off his mat and out of his bedspreads. He snagged a pair of worn sandals from the floor and slipped them onto his feet. _I wonder if I was talking in my sleep, Briar thought. _

  
Briar pulled himself to his feet while Tris watched him. Watching him, she felt a little out-of-place - or was it that she felt at home? She couldn't really tell.  Yes, he'd really been a friend to her, hadn't he? 

  
"We can go," he said, standing before her. Tris nodded, and they headed off to breakfast, the most important meal of the day. As they entered the kitchen, Daja had woken up a little, and the rest of the people had taken their seats at the table. Briar and Tris hurriedly scooted into a bench next to each other. Prayer was led by Sandry and Lark, and the eating commenced.

  
"You were in there a while," Lark commented as she spooned honey onto her oatmeal. "Was Briar a pain to get up?"

"I bet you could hit him with a brick and he wouldn't wake!" Tris exclaimed. She took the honey from Lark and passed it to Briar, who eagerly poured it all over his breakfast. 

  
"Don't you dare hit me with a brick while I'm sleeping," Briar reprimanded, drizzling on the honey. Rosie snatched it away and scolded him to not hog it all. Briar shrugged and took the cream from Daja.

  
"I don't blame him. We had a long day yesterday!" Daja said, stirring her oatmeal with half-open eyes. 

  
"Wake up, sleepyhead," Sandry joked, whacking her companion on the hand with a spoon. "I'm giving you the honey. Open your eyes and take it, lest you want my hand to fall off." Daja's single left eye opened to see Sandry armed with the honey in one hand and the lethal spoon in the other.  Daja relieved her friend of the object.

  
Rosethorn groaned. "Must today be a chore day, too?" 

"It is for us, but why should it be for you and Lark?" Sandry asked, setting down her milk after a sip. "You don't live here. You shouldn't have to work here."  
  


"Call it a mother's instinct to help you," Lark chuckled, swirling her honey into the oatmeal with her spoon. "I'd feel bad if I didn't."  
  


"But, Lark," protested Daja, "though we really appreciate the help, we don't want to keep you from your other duties!"   
  


"Nonsense," Rosie said. "You're helping us. I would rather be with any of you any day than - gods help me - at one of those meetings we always have!"   
  


"What do you guys talk about at those meetings you hate anyways?" Daja asked, spooning up some oatmeal.   
  


"I can't tell you much. It's secret," said Rosethorn. "But it's basically just everyone acting nervous about the current situation and seemingly trying to make the rest of the world nervous, too." 

  
"Sounds like fun," said Tris sarcastically.   
  


"Oh, very," grumbled Rosethorn.   
  


"Well, don't think of us doing this to just get out of our meeting. We also like to help you, too," said Lark with a smile. She picked up her glass of milk. "A toast to the return to Discipline!" she cheered.

  
"To the good old days," laughed Sandry.

  
"To having our old rooms back," Tris said with a faint smile.

  
"To being with Lark and Rosie and Niko," Briar said, grinning.

  
"To being home," said Daja, half-awake. But her words were the simplest and most efficient way of saying it than all the others. They drank their fill of the cool milk, sealing the toast.  
  


It was good to be back.  
  
---  
  
"Power," Raeldro said huskily. "It is what makes the world go 'round. It is also the source of pain and destruction. Horrible pain and destruction is being caused to our wonderful planet these days because of someone's quest for power. Our goal is to fix that."  
  


It was that night, and the sun had sunk down upon the horizon, leaving a blanket of night sprinkled with stars and clouds. Niko had tried to reserve the Hub for meditation that day. However, due to the increased hustle and bustle,  he had been unable to save the room for them. Instead, Niko had vouched for a night mediation at Discipline. This way, there would be total solitude, no disturbances. He had elected Raeldro to lead the meditation. That day, there would be no power-building exercises. This was a chance to Raeldro to get to observe growth changes in the young adults since he had last tested their power a week earlier.

  
"Because of the desperate nature of the situation, I need all of you to concentrate, and concentrate hard," Raeldro went on. Sandry was swooning over his kind, gentle voice again. "Agreed?"

  
The four nodded. "Close your eyes, everyone. Begin breathing. Breathe in with my counting. One, two, three ..." 

  
The group did as they were told. The great mage continued, "Wind yourselves into something small, something you can become and move as. Something that you are familiar with works best."  
  


Sandry did her usual: a piece of thread. Briar became a vine, with roots deep into healthy soil. Tris became a rope of wind, while Daja became a metal wire, drawn out and glowing warmly.   
  


"Move your object. Become it, and do what it does. Become your object!" commanded Raeldro. His eyes were open, and they darted delicately from face to face.   
  


Sandry began to weave her thread into a loom, whisking back and forth between the fibers. Briar let his roots shoot into the soil, and pushed his leaves out to bask in the warm sun. Tris traveled along a cloud, dancing among the other breezes, winding as she soared down and up among the celestial heavens. Daja stretched herself out and then coiled herself up, repeating the action.

  
"What do you feel now? You feel power, your own power. You feel it moving as you become your object. You feel it, enabling you to do what your object does. Your power flows through your object. Keep going, now, with your object; keep the action. I want you to continue while I look into you, and observe your power."

  
Sandry kept going. She darted between a small space in the loom, pulling herself tightly again the strings. She was partway done making her fabric, and it stood like a giant wall to her right. She jumped through the loom-strings again. She gasped. Were those _eyes_ watching her on the fabric? She swore she hadn't woven a pattern with eyes there. Perhaps she had put them there by accident, just as she had made those four lumps in her first thread by accident. But, that couldn't be. She didn't make silly mistakes like that any more.   
  


She continued her weaving, despite this, trying to not look into the eyes. But they were certainly not stationary. They moved, followed her actions. She was about ready to open her real eyes when she came to figure out that the eyes were the working of Raeldro. _Of course!_ she thought to herself. _He said he was going to observe us, and that's just what he's doing._ She could have smacked herself for not realizing the hazel color of the eyes; they were his indeed.

  
Well done, Sandry; you may stop. The voice was Raeldro's, and he was thought-speaking to her. She did as she commanded, knotting off her weaving. Look at your weaving. It is beautiful, is it not? The weave is spectacular. It shows you have a strength about you; it shows dedication. Very good.

  
Thank you, Raeldro, Sandry thought to him. I won't disappoint you.  
  


You don't disappoint me at all, Sandry. As a matter of fact, you do quite the opposite. With that, the eyes disappeared, and Raeldro was gone.  Just keep breathing until I'm done, said an echo of his voice. Sandry's magical body did a double-take. Had the eyes _winked_ at her?

  
A moment later, Briar was stretching out his vine-branches, letting them strain towards a sun looming in the clear sky. His roots dug deep into the soil, moist and full of nutrients. He reached for the sun again.  
  


_Eyes! There are eyes in the sun! I didn't put them there,_ thought Briar worriedly to himself, seeing hazel eyes with a backdrop of golden sun. _But don't stop! You have to keep going!_

  
Briar dug in his roots more deeply, swallowing up the richness of the earth as they extended. His tendrils flew upwards towards the sun, though inwardly, Briar cringed fearfully. Those creepy hazel eyes...  
  


Very well done, Briar Moss. Your power is incredible, said a voice.  
  


Raeldro? thought Briar back to the speaker.

  
I was observing you. My apologies for frightening you. I am very pleased. Briar listened, and felt himself sigh with relief. No demon had invaded his mind to plant eyes on his sun.

  
You may stop, Briar.

Briar did so, and then followed the remainder of Raeldro's instructions. Look at yourself. Do you see the firmness of your stalk, the deepness of those strong roots? You dig deep inside yourself to work for your just cause, just as you dig deep into the earth for life. You stretch your magical leaves out to assist others, just as these leaves reach for the sun. Rest easy, Briar, and just continue breathing until I am done with all of your good friends. The eyes vanished in a flash.

  
Daja was the next to be subject of Raeldro's observation. As she pulled herself out and made her wire longer, she saw eyes looking up at her from the metal piece from which she drew the wire. She, however, knew exactly who it was. Whether it was information she had subconsciously picked up from Briar or Sandry, or whether she had been waiting for it, she recognized his eyes immediately and drew more of herself out of the hole, pulling herself out into a sturdy cord. 

  
She tensed up as she soared for the most upwards point she could see. She recoiled slightly to gather herself up again, but the Daja tugged more upwards, keeping herself the same uniform size all around.  
  


Wonderful, Daja. Please take a break. You have done well, and I am most certainly pleased. Daja was also able to tell that the voice was Raeldro's, and she did as he commanded her, letting her wire end. She snapped up tightly and the wire popped out of its hold. She settled down beside the eyes.   
  


Your wire is strong. It will not break, and neither will your persistence during the task ahead. You are very worthy of being a part of this project.

   
Thank you, Raeldro, answered Daja. The eyes vanished from her sight. Just breathe now like you usually do during meditation while I finish with your friends, said the voice, fading away. 

  
Tris, meanwhile was sweeping along a cloud's curves. The wind-cord that was Tris whipped down along a curve and then dodged around a few other frisking winds. She gathered them up, and they became a part of her.  She broke through another breeze, taking it along with her. She was now a considerably large-sized gale. She billowed along a wave of air and consumed it. Then, Tris flew past a cloud. It dragged behind her somewhat. 

  
She bent herself, conforming around another cloud's edge as she glanced at the cloud she had just passed. She could have died of panic. Two eyes glanced at her from the cloud, two very hazel eyes. She thought for a moment that maybe some evil was tampering with her. She charged at the puff as winds often do, smashing into it and breaking it into many smaller clouds. Turning to see what had become of the eyes, they floated before her on a tiny fluff of the once large cloud. Bursting past it, Tris ran away, zooming along other winds and past large clouds.  
  


The eyes followed her, gaining over her, the speed equal to her own. _Since when do clouds follow winds like this? Tris thought to herself fearfully.  
  
_

Excellent job, Tris, said a voice, causing Tris to almost scream in fright. Her wind circled a cloud slowly, creeping along at a quiet pace. But the voice's owner hit her immediately – Raeldro was the speaker. Now that she thought about it, the eyes had been remarkably similar to his, too.  
  


Oh, it's only you. I'm sorry, apologized Tris. A part of her was angry. He deserved having his cloud burst apart, if he was going to be such a sneak about observing her! He should have at least warned them!

  
No worries, Tris. I was just commenting on the beautiful wind you've made yourself into. Look at yourself! You have gathered so many smaller winds to make yourself strong. I take this as a sign that you will gather together all of your own power to help us in this crisis.  
  


Thank you, she thought back to Raeldro. He meant nothing to her.

  
Simply continue breathing while I check on Niko. A job well done again, my dear. The eyes vanished, as did the voice.  
  


_I am not your "dear,"_ thought Tris bitterly.

  
It was another ten minutes before the exercise was finished. Raeldro instructed the group to open their eyes as they broke away from the meditation. The look in his eyes was very pleased.  
  


He said he thought I was strong, Daja thought to her friends as they headed back to their rooms. They entered the doorway, closing the door behind them.   
  


I think he said the same to all of us, Tris thought-spoke, her voice uneasy. Was it just me, or was that weird? She made her way to the stairwell.

  
Just you. Go to bed, weather-witch, Briar thought to them, entering his room. Goodnight!

  
Tris and Daja made their way up the stairs while Sandry retreated in silence to her own room. Tris and Daja had both changed and gotten into bed quickly, slipping into bed without hesitation and drifting into slumber immediately. Sandry, however, was not so quick to fall asleep.

  
Daja, she thought to her dark-skinner friend. Daja, he winked at me. Help me!  
  


What? Who winked at you? Huh? thought a sleepy Daja. 

  
Sandry quickly recounted her experience during the meditation. There was a quiet silence, and finally, Daja replied, Maybe it was your imagination, _saati__. Maybe you're wishing too hard for something, and so you've been seeing things. That's all. Sleep now, and worry in the morning._  
  


With that, Daja fell quiet.  
  


Sandry sighed and rolled over. Daja was right. It was time to sleep. Her eyelids were heavy, and her mind was simply drained. Her eyes fluttered closed and she fell rapidly into a deep snooze.  
  


She soon began to dream. 

**Sandry was in the forest, weaving. She sat under a willow tree and drew many materials from a basket. She drew threads, the simplest and plainest flax, from her basket. Ropes of wind and deep green vines also were in her basket as well as wires of metal. She started to weave each individual element onto her loom, darting back and forth with her fingers.**

**  
A husky voice called to her. "Sandry," whispered the voice. It sounded as if the trees were speaking to her. "Sandry, Sandry. Let me be a part of you."  
  
**

**A figure clad in a black robe with a hood over his head approached her. Sandry was unable to see his face, since the hood cast dark shadows over his features. She didn't know where he came from, but his voice was alluring and thick with temptation. The sound dripped of desire, like poison from sweet nectar's lips. **

**"Sandry, let me become a part of you!" said the figure. He knelt beside her and pulled a ray of white, shimmering light from his pocket. It was unlike a thread, as in it was not solid, but it felt to be pure and real all the same. He wove the light into her pattern, making it glow with a brilliance.**

**  
"I am the strong addition. I am the peacemaker, the one who enlightens, the savior. I can be your savior. I can be a part of you, Sandry. I can be a part of your circle, if only you let me!"  
  
**

**"No!" Sandry said, trying to tug the light from the weave. "The circle will always be us four, and nothing can change that, not even you, even if you are a great person! There are no openings in our circle. It is too tightly knit!" But the light would not come from the weave.  
  
**

**"I mean not to intrude, nor to impose. Forgive me, noble lady, for my rash actions. The choice is yours! But I have my reasons; my desire to be a part of you is based on something real and true." **

**His hand touched under her chin, making her look up. "Forgive me. Say you can forgive me." Sandry only nodded her agreement.   
  
**

**"I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be a part of you. I want to see your soul!" He placed his rough hands on her cheeks and pulled her close, kissing her mouth. She did not resist him, for his lips were rich with that same tempting passion.  
  
**

**He broke their kiss. "The choice is yours," he rasped, panting.  
  
**

**"The choice is yours. Do you want me?" With that, he vanished into the air. **

  
Sandry awoke in a fit. Strangled by her sheets, she pulled up from her bed with a start, her face hot with embarrassment and delight. 

_That dream!_ she gasped. _What can it mean? Who was that mysterious man, and why does he love me? _She touched her fingers to her tender lips. _That felt so real, so human. He felt so present, as if I could have touched him.   
  
_

She recoiled under the sheets. She was unable to identify the voice, as she had forgotten the distinct sound upon awakening. But she did have one strong desire for it to be a certain dark-haired mage named Raeldro Earthkin.  
  
---  
  
"The heat this week has been disgusting!" muttered Sandry, wiping her hair away from her sweaty brow and then returning to cutting the bread. She groaned with discomfort. Two weeks had passed since the midnight meditation, and the earth was not getting better. The temperature had reached record-high levels all week, but it was foreseen to plummet the next week. Niko himself had seen it in a vision. 

  
"I know," sighed Lark as she set the table with spoons and bowls. She brushed back a curl. She, as well as Rosethorn, had moved back to Discipline for the time being. Honored Moonstream, aware of the dedicates' love for the young mages, allowed them to dwell at Discipline with their former charges, not to control them but to help if needed and to give moral support during the crisis. 

"Rosie's plants aren't going to grow this way. They aren't made for such weather."  
  


"You know Niko's prediction, though. Be sure to break out your shawls," grumbled Tris, tying back her hair with a kerchief as she stirred the pot of soup. "Someone needs to call Rosie and Briar in from the garden. I hope Daja gets back soon with the well-water."  
  


"I'll get them," volunteered Lark.   
  


"What are they doing?" Sandry asked, setting the bread on the table. "I thought you said the garden was failing."  
  


"It is. They're trying to save it," said Lark. Regret showed in her face. "They've been giving it loads of that plant-feed that Raeldro recommended, and then some. I hope it works! They've been laboring so long."  
  


Sandry nodded agreement and fetched glasses for Daja's water as the black-skinned mage entered the room, setting the heavy bucket on the floor.

  
Lark weaseled out of the door, squeezing around a gasping Daja and her bucket. In the garden, sweating under the weight of the hot sun, Rosie and Briar sat transplanting plant-feed into each and every seed area. Each gave a small amount of their magic to each plant also, a process that was sure to exhaust the two before the sun set. Rosethorn had rolled up her sleeves and her skirts to allow air to get over her hot flesh. Briar had tossed off his shirt and rolled up his slacks. Both were barefoot, tired, and pouring sweat. 

  
"Time for the midday meal. You might want to wash up," Lark told her companions. Her eyes twinkled as Briar and Rosethorn glanced at themselves and each other. They both were covered with a hot layer of dust and dirt on their knees and feet and especially on their hands. Lark returned to the house and informed the rest of the group that the plant-mages would return after a quick wash at the well. 

Daja scooped up water from the bucket into each glass and set the glasses on the table while Tris set the steaming soup onto the table.

  
Final preparations were made as the girls heard Rosethorn and Briar arguing outside in the garden.   
  


"It's hot today," protested Briar.  
  


"I don't care if it's hot or not," snapped Rosethorn. "It's still indecent to sit at a meal without your shirt on. I won't allow it."

  
"But..."  
  


"No 'buts,' boy! I don't care if you're hot. We're all hot, even us girls, but you don't see us running around half- naked around you!" Rosethorn cried. "Now get your shirt."

  
Briar blushed and retrieved his shirt, slipping it over his head as he went in the door. He hadn't thought of it that way.

  
_Still getting bossed by Rosethorn,_ a part of him said.  _And she's still always right.  
  
_

When he walked in, the room was oddly quiet. The girls each in turn gave him a sideways glance. Daja was trying to keep from laughing, but Tris was red. Sandry was doing both. She was unable to contain her giggles as she sat down at the table. Briar shot an angry, embarrassed glare at her as he seated himself at the table next to her. Rosethorn and Lark led the prayer and the meal commenced. Rosethorn and Briar had both emptied their water glasses within moments and Daja refilled them. Soup was eaten slowly. It was hot enough outside without the steaming food, but it was nutritious and would supply the group with good nutrients. 

  
It was Briar's and Daja's job to clean up the table and the dishes. Meanwhile, Tris and Sandry retreated to the roof for a few minutes for a rest. The air up there was cooler, and the breezes blew harder. Being on the roof was refreshing to the girls, who laid down and closed their eyes, resting.  
  


"Gods, this feels wonderful," sighed Sandry. "It's so much nicer up here."

  
"The sun's still strong, though. We'll all be darkly tanned if we stay out here too long," Tris warned. "And I don't need any more freckles, thanks." She made a face.

  
"There isn't anything wrong with your freckles," Sandry assured her curly-haired friend. "They're nice."  
  


"Nice? I've always thought they were ugly," Tris growled. "If you're buttering me up for something, just say it!"  
  


"I'm not!" retorted Sandry indignantly. "I just say that they aren't ugly, even though I know you think they are."   
  


"Thank you," said Tris quietly, glancing over at her noble companion. _She's very noble in many ways, she said to herself.  
  
"You're welcome," giggled Sandry. She yawned and squinted in the sunlight. "What time did Niko want us to meet him?" she asked Tris._

  
"Two o'clock," answered Tris. "So we have about another hour." She grinned. "I think I'll spend it sleeping up here."  
  


"Same," chorused Sandry and Daja, who was coming up from the house. She sat down between Sandry and Tris.   
  


"I'm due for some winks," added Briar, following Daja up the stairs. He retreated to the shade cast by the chimney, leaning against it and closing his eyes.  
  
---  
  
"Today, we begin our experiment," Niko informed the group an hour later. After their naps, Niko had met them at the Hub. They were taking a leisurely stroll with him around the winding road that gave Winding Circle its name.  
  


"The experiment? You mean, giving the earth our power?" Sandry asked, smoothing out her pale yellow dress.  
  


"Precisely," said Niko.  
  


"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Daja. "No one ever did tell us."  
  


Niko explained, "It's similar to how the earth gives you power. You will be doing the same to it. The earth offers you power, and you take it. Today, we will offer our power to the earth, and the earth will take it, if all goes well." 

  
"I still don't understand," Sandry asked. "We just... offer it?"   
  


"It's not as simple as it sounds. It never is," Tris grumbled. "It's a spell, isn't it?"  
  


"It is a spell, a very powerful one," Niko said. "We will call upon ourselves and travel in our magical bodies to the center of the earth, to the core, to the heart of the earth. In the earth's heart, there, we will donate our power to the earth. Only some, not a lot. You will know when you have exceeded your limit. The earth's core will absorb the power and rejuvenate itself, hopefully."  
  


"It sounds risky," murmured Briar. "What if the earth doesn't take the magic, and someone else does?"  
  


"No one else should take it. Because we are down in the earth's core, the first body to take the power will be the earth. If we performed the spell anywhere else, the power would become nameless magic, and it would float around for anyone to take."  
  


"I can see why this spell is so powerful. It deals with our very power, our magics, our life-forces. If we mess up, we could end up giving all our power away and kill ourselves. Isn't that right?" Sandry asked.  
  


"Yes," Niko said. "But you will be able to tell when you've reached your limit. You know your power. Your life-force will tell you when you have fed too much of your magic back to the earth, where it came from."  
  


Tris gulped. "If this is such a powerful spell... are we going to have to seal it in blood?" she said, turning pale. I know you're supposed to seal powerful spells in blood."  
  


"Yes," Niko admitted. 

  
Tris groaned and put her hands on her face. She hated blood. The others sighed, not caring nearly as much as Tris. 

"Every time?" Daja asked. "Surely if we do, we'll end up losing a lot of blood." Tris groaned again mournfully.  
  


"You'll only use a little," Niko said. "Since we will be doing this for a few weeks, I'm not going to let you do a real blood-letting, since I don't want you to get sick from lack of blood." Tris sounded like she might start sobbing.

  
"Oh, cheer up, Coppercurls," Briar laughed. "You'll heal."  
  


"It's only a little blood," Sandry said.   
  


"A little blood?" Tris wailed. "It makes me sick."   
  


Come, now," said Niko, shooing them in front of him. "I was able to reserve this place only for an hour!" They entered a small, deserted cottage and seated themselves on the stone floor. Niko coolly warded the house, went to the kitchen, and pulled out five dusty bowls and knives. Tris went even paler and closed her eyes, feeling herself lurch with sickness.  
  


"Breathe," he told her simply. After a few moments of deep breathing, Tris had settled herself down, and her face had returned to its normal color.  
  


"Five bowls?" murmured Briar. "You'll do it, too?"  
  


"Of course," said Niko. "There are many, many mages taking part in this activity, including myself."  
  


"That doesn't sound good," said Daja. "What if some mage was seemingly taking part in this activity but was really working evil and stealing the earth's magic?" She sounded worried.  
  


"Here at Winding Circle and at most other Living Circle Temples, very strong mages have tested all the dedicates and mages there for conspiring against the earth. The best soothsayers have been present at all of these meetings to be sure no lies were told. Now, we know that it is no Living Circle dedicate is involved."

"What if they shielded themselves against the soothsayer?" Sandry asked.  
  


Niko continued, "These soothsayers were very powerful, Sandry. It would be difficult to hide anything from them. We also have another precaution. Raeldro has been busy supervising many, many people at the earth's core, as he can supervise large numbers of mages at a time. I'm your supervision today, and I will continue to supervise you.  You will never, ever do this activity without supervision, or you risk penalty of a prison term from the Mage Council. You no longer just have me to punish you. You are real mages now." There was an odd silence.

  
"Now, shall we begin?" said Niko. He smiled grimly and told his former students, "Close your eyes. The time has come."


	5. Chapter 4

"Breathe deeply. In, and out. Air is life. Breathe in life. Breathe out impurity. One, two, three, four..." said Niko. The four began breathing as Niko instructed. 

  
"Focus!" he said sharply. "This requires all your concentration. We now venture to the center of the earth. The journey is long and hard. Are you ready? Breathe."  
  


All the mages turned all of their attention to their breathing. In, and out; in, and out. It was a circle, as were their lives. They were a circle! Everything was circular in motion, from the sun's rising and setting to the rebirths of souls. Their world had functioned in a delicate circular cycle. Now, the cycle was disrupted. It was time to bring that back, and restore the circle.

  
"We're leaving our bodies now. Come with me; I will lead you," a hushed voice said. Niko was quiet as he focused.   
  


The mages slid out of their bodies. The process was always easy. It was like pulling peas gently from a pod. They sprung out and felt themselves floating around the room, their true bodies behind. 

  
Tris glanced back at herself. No matter how many times she did this, she always had the oddest feeling in her gut when she looked back at her body sitting there, eyes closed, mouth parted slightly as she breathed. Tris's magical self shuddered as she turned to the others.   
  


Daja was hard to look at, because she was a glowing red-orange color that hurt the eyes. Tris was a stormy blue, deeper than the sea. Briar's magical self was a greenish color, something between pine and vine. Niko was like a golden sun, colored and glowing like one, as was Sandry. But Sandry had less glow to her, and she was slightly more earthen toned. But all the colors were not solid; they pulsed and glowed in many variations of the hues.  
  


Follow me, said Niko. He sounded/felt like sunshine in one's eyes. I know where to go.

  
He shot into the earth between a crack in a stone. The mages followed, uncertain of where they were going. Niko slid between layers of earth, his magical body changing shape to fit into the forms of his passage. Tris was right behind him, dovetailing into the cracks of earth. She could sense theearth shifting, the plates moving gently, like sea-tides. 

Sandry was behind Tris. She did sense the sea-tides in the earth, but she felt even more the ties and bonds that held the earth together. The ties were like threads, but they were weak, as if they had been poorly made. 

Briar followed Sandry, flitting over soil and rock. His felt roots digging into the earth, sucking away its moisture. Daja's red hot self was at the end of the line. Metals were deep down in the earth, and she could feel it. She heard them ringing out.   
  


Niko felt his way through another crack, and then another, and then another. The others followed him. The journey changed, as soil changed to rock, rock changed to fossil. There were many more layers to the earth than the four young mages had realized, and they seemed to go on forever. Briar was impatiently about to ask how much longer it would take when they came to what seemed like a clearing, a void.

  
A plane of blackness? Is this the core of the earth? It seems so dead! Sandry commented. It's dark. She looked around. They were in something like a room, one that was a sphere in shape. It was black, and Sandry shivered. No matter what, she hated the dark.

This is it, Niko thought to them. But you're behind me. You can't see what I see. Come here, he instructed. The four floated beside him and gasped.  
  


A globe, swirling with a million colors, floated before them. It was huge! It was twelve times as tall as they were, floating in the middle of the blackness. It shed a bright light on them as it glowed. It was somewhat translucent, but it glimmered with so many colors, which mixed on the surface like soap bubbles. Daja grinned.

   
It's beautiful, she thought to the others. Can we get closer?

  
Yes, but don't touch. You might hurt yourselves if you do. It will suck you in, Niko told them. They floated closer, looking at the multitude of colors. 

He went on, See all the colors? Each represents a different type of magic. Green is plants; blue is water. Yellow is sun, air, thread. Gray is stone. Red is fire and metal. Some are more not physical. Purple is unity and strength, while white is purity and love.  
  


But there are so many different shades of each color! commented Sandry.

  
That's because each color is for, say, a subcategory. Darker greens are for trees; lighter greens are for flowers or vines. And each dark green is a different type of tree, while each light green is a different type of flower, Niko informed them. The colors are so varied, so distinct, that each plant in the world is represented by a different color green.

  
Fascinating, murmured Tris. So this is the earth's magic.

   
Yes, what's left of it. You see this whole area? The part that's black? Niko asked. This whole area used to be full of magic. So much has been drained.  
  


Gods, gasped Briar. The empty part is huge, bigger than the part that's left. He shook his head. 

  
Any more questions? Niko said patiently. The mages were silent. Niklaren Goldeye nodded his head. 

Time to begin, then. Concentrate. Your magical selves are from the earth, and never forget that. You all must return to the earth what it has given you.  
  


Summon your power. Keep it ready for when you need it. First, we must seal the spell with blood. But you must mean it. If you do not, it means nothing. Cut yourselves, and let yourselves bleed, for the sake of the earth. The earth has bled for us. Now, we bleed for it. The earth's magic will suck the blood away. Niko drew his left hand over his right, both palms-down, reciting an ancient poem.   
  


I seal my spell with blood  
I seal my spell with a part of me  
I seal my spell with myself  
I seal myself.

  
When he turned his hands back up, he had two small slits upon his palms.   
  


Tris gulped. She didn't want to bleed herself. But Niko was right. The earth had bled for her, done so much for her. A few drops of blood on her part would do no harm! She followed the motions that Niko had, reciting the poem as her former master had done. And she meant every word.

  
I seal my spell with blood  
I seal my spell with a part of me  
I seal my spell with myself  
I seal myself.

   
She could hear her friends doing the same, and she saw Daja look at her palms.   
  


Hesitantly, Tris did the same, and she found she had two slits along her palms. Blue blood trickled into the lifeline of her palm. But she felt no pain. She shivered, turning to Niko for the next step.

  
When I give the word, we place our hands a small bit away from the magic-globe, but don't touch it. Keep your palms facing the globe, and the blood will be drawn into the globe as you do so. At the same time, feed your magic back whence it came from into the magic of earth. Begin! Niko threw his hands forward. They hovered away from the globe. Golden blood flew from his hands, followed by a thick cord of streaming light which was Niko's magic. Tris and Sandry both placed their hands up quickly, followed by Briar and Daja lastly. They threw forward their magic as their bloods trickled from the wounds. It was like a gentle pull from the globe, but the mages were pulling back to keep the globe from taking too much. 

The blood coming off of Sandry's hands made her tremble with delight. It tickled as the blood came with the magic in a steady stream to the center of the globe. Sandry saw it as a rope, a tug-of-war, between the earth and herself. Sandry figured that if the earth had been stronger originally, then the earth would have easily won the contest.

  
Daja saw the pull of the blood and magic from her hands as wire being drawn. It didn't hurt, but the feeling was very strange. Briar saw it like a sort of growth, like roots sinking into the earth, literally.  
  


All saw the giving of power in the same way: it felt to be an odd release, so strange. Every little thing about the process was familiar, but only in reverse. It was similar to the feeling they each had when they drew upon their power, only backwards. It was tugging out a wire, sinking in roots, threading a needle, one wind feeding a larger one. It was a precious, sacred release of power that had once belonged to the earth; it was giving back a gift. They each were struck with the idea that it was a thank-you, a debt paid to the earth. The process made each mage feel so grateful. The powers surged into the core of the earth. It glowed weakly, but then shone brightly, changing to a lighter and seemingly healthier hue.

   
Tris was starting to feel a little bit weak. Niko had been right; she knew that she was coming to her limit. Niko! a part of her cried. She was suddenly worried. What if she couldn't stop? How do I cut off contact? How? Quickly! Tell me!

  
Calm down, Tris, said Niko hurriedly. Just close your hands, and cut with your mind. Cut off the contact like you'd cut something with scissors. Niko, feeling himself be slightly drained, closed his hands. With his mind, he took magical scissors and severed his tie to the earth. His magical body sprang back after the release, as if he was a cord pulled taut and then let go.

  
Tris did the same, closing her hands. I release myself from you, Tris said in her mind. It was like breaking apart a stone. She pulled away from the earth's power. The tie gave, and she was pushed away as a result. 

  
Soon, Briar and Sandry released as well. Daja was the last to do so, being the last to start. They each sprung back in turn as they released. Tris felt very weary, but not as much as Niko. She had noticed during the process that he'd fed more magic to the earth than any of them did at once. He had given off a huge amount of his power.  
  


Tomorrow, we'll come back, he said. I expect the same good work from you tomorrow as you did today, so rest well tonight. Come along. He swished past them, golden fire burning, and headed to the same place where they had entered. 

  
How long will we be doing this? Tris asked as they zipped through the earth up towards the surface. 

  
As long as it takes to make the earth's core fill that entire space again, Niko replied. We won't have to do it all ourselves, though. As I said, there are other mages involved in this project. Also, the earth has its own methods of replenishing itself. The earth's magic and life-force feed off each other, like you know, so it's all not up to us human mages. But, yes, the earth's core must fill that entire space for it to be healthy once more.

   
Well, I hate to say it, but that could take years. I didn't see any change when we were in there, Sandry remarked. She sounded very sad.

  
Don't fret. You won't see a change until we go tomorrow. By then, the magics worked on it today will have been processed and read by the core, and the size will grow. You'll see. It looks much better than when I went yesterday, Niko remarked.   
  


You're going to have to explain the core to me some, Daja commented. I don't think I really understand it.

  
No one really understands it, Daja. We are only human. But I will try and give you my best explanation once we reach the surface, and we're almost there, Niko promised.  
  


Don't confuse us, begged Briar. He grinned at them.

  
With that, the five mages burst through the stone crack in the earth, now floating around the cottage. Each returned to their bodies, like stepping into clothes. Tris was the first to moan when she opened her eyes. She had good reason to.

  
By saying the spell earlier, Tris had magically sliced open her palms, as had the others. Their physical bodies had done the same, to physically bind the spell. The blood had dripped from their hands to pool into the cup, making a large puddle at the bottom. Tris's head began spinning as the slight pain of the wounds and the sight of her own blood hit her. The heat of the day wasn't helping.

  
"Steady her," the tall mage commanded as Sandry grabbed her friend's arm. Daja groaned as she clambered over to support Tris, holding her other side. Briar, on the other hand, repeatedly switched looking at the cuts on his hands to the very pale Tris.  
  


Briar said sweetly, "You know, you get to do this tomorrow, too."  
  


Tris growled at him and took the cup of water that Niko had fetched for her. She gulped it down feverishly. "You'll also have to explain that chant we did down there," she gasped after one long swallow. "Why did we cut our hands up here, too?"  
  


Niko smiled. "The spell has four lines. The first one, 'I seal my spell with blood,' is the one that caused you to cut your hands up in this world. The second, 'I seal my spell with a part of me,' causes you to cut your hands in the magical sense. The third, 'I seal my spell with myself,' shows your will for the spell to occur, dedication. The fourth, 'I seal myself,' spells you against contracting anything from the open wound."  
  


"I see," Tris said with a swallow, resisting the urge to hurl at her blood in the cup. "I guess I can't skip lines, can I?" she laughed jokingly.

  
"Never," said Niko sternly. "Now, about the core. The core is a very complex thing, I must admit, and no mage can fully comprehend it. But in simplest terms, the core is this. Each thing in this world - every single bit of nature - is represented by the core by one color. Each strip of color is made of two things. One is the life-force, what causes this world to exist; one is the magic, the part that makes it grow. There are elements also, such as the common-bond, something which keeps everything united, under control of the core. Another is the anti-magic, the part that lets it die when it's time is through. Those are not important right now, so I'll go on."

  
"I'm still confused," muttered Briar.

  
If Niko heard the comment, he ignored it. "The life-force is the one that feeds everything, and gives them the chance to exist. It is the primary 'thread,' shall I say, of each color-beam in the core. When it goes weak, the others try to feed it. They are wrapped around it. When the others go weak, the life-force feeds them. They are involved in a mutually healthy relationship. When both are healthy, they feed and lend one another's power, and their power multiplies, like you do in your daily exercises." Sandry grinned at the mention of threads. She knew she'd sensed them in the earth.

  
"Now, these days, the life-force is being robbed. Someone is pulling that one thread of power from all the others, and stealing it for their own uses. The life-force is unable to sustain the other magics, so they all dwindle down. That's why everything is so messed up. There is no unity, and there is no growth. Everything is abnormal. But, you all are doing your part. You give back the earth some of its own magic. Thus, the earth's magic is able to feed the life-force, which feeds all of the other things, which makes everything right again. Does that make sense?"  
  


"Yes," said Sandry. "But some people - most people - don't have the earth's magic like we do. Their magic is different. They don't grow and create, like we do. How do they help?"  
  


"Not everyone feeds into the earth's magic. Some feed into the other elements, like anti-magic or common-bond. After all, every person has all the elements the earth does. That's why our bodies work in unity; that's why we die. They're able to channel that magic to the earth instead. No one feeds directly into the life-force, though. That's too dangerous. The earth's life-force is too desperate, and it will drain all of your power off and kill you accidentally, simply out of wild desire." Sandry shivered and made the gods-circle on her chest. That would be a scary way to die, to have all your life drawn out of you.  
  


"Why can't we give other stuff to the earth, 'sides our earth-magic? It would help more," Briar asked. Niko made a serious face at the younger male.  
  


"If you do that, you'll end up like the earth. All you'll have will be your life-forces, basically, and you'll be off-balance without your magics and such. Then, the life-force will try and replace it, and so on and so forth. Everything in you will go awry, and we'll have to do the same to you as we're doing to the earth now. So don't even try it." Niko warned.

  
Briar nodded. "I won't!" he swore. He wouldn't be stupid now. This was too big to make mistakes about when people were counting on him. "But why do we give earth magic, when we could give other magic? It's because we're the some of only ones who got it, right?"

  
"Yes," Niko said. 

  
"I thought so," Daja said. She thought a moment. "The core of the earth is kind of like the earth's brain, isn't it?"   
  


"Like that, and many other things. It also makes things, stores things, and does all sorts of other things. For our purposes, that's all you need to know. Any questions?" The others shook their heads. Tris downed another glass of water. 

"Fine," Niko stated. "Let's get Tris back to Discipline. If she has to pass out, better there than here."  
  


"This is so undignified," she grumbled as her friends helped her stand. Leaning totally on them, Sandry and Daja helped her walk out of the door. Niko vanished the blood with a flip of his hands, dissolving the crimson fluid. He gathered the knives and bowls to be taken for cleansing, stuck them in an oiled bag, and exited, smiling as his wobbly student staggered to Discipline.  
  
---  
  
"You're really going to have to get used to it," chided Lark as she gave Tris another cup of soothing tea. "You can't go faint every time you see your own blood. You'll be seeing it a lot these next few weeks."

  
"I don't have to get used to it!" cried Tris weakly. "I don't want to get used to it!"

  
"You've seen blood before," Sandry asked, bandaging Daja's hand. "Why is this different?" She finished the bandage, smiling triumphantly.

  
"But this is my blood. It's different!" Tris protested. Sandry started to bandage her hands. This relieved Tris. Now she wouldn't have to look at the ugly red marks on her palms. 

  
"Well, just don't look at it, then," Daja remarked. "And you'll be just fine."

  
"That's hard when there's a bucket of it looming in front of you," challenged Tris moodily. Sandry wrapped the bandage around Tris's right hand once more and secured it. Tris set down her tea, and Sandry started on the next hand. 

  
"I'm sorry, merchant-girl. I'm just trying to help you!" sighed Daja. 

  
Tris glanced at her. "I don't like blood. Nothing can change that." She muttered her thanks to Sandry after she was finished with her hands. 

  
"Well," Lark said, "I'll just keep plenty of this tea on hand, then." 

  
"Don't tease her," Briar chided mockingly as he entered the room from outside. He'd been fetching more water for tea. "She had a rough day today. She's seen a lot of gore." Briar grinned and set down the water.

  
Tris reached for something to throw at him. The first thing she grabbed was a spoon. She hurled it at him, missing his head by a foot. "Plug your mouth, pick-pocket!" she yelled furiously. Briar laughed and dodged the spoon, picking it up and setting it back at the edge of the table.

  
"Oh, stop it," Sandry scolded him. "Get over here. I need to wrap up your hands."  
  


"I'm going soft," muttered Briar as he complied with her wishes. He watched as she wrapped up his hands. "I got to get myself patched up even after a little scratch. I'm living with a bunch of sissy girls. And the worst thing ever thrown at me is a spoon. Life's too easy."

  
Daja rolled her eyes at him. "Do you want me to throw knives at you, then? Will that be too soft for you?" she asked simply.

  
"No, I don't want knives thrown at me," Briar huffed.   
  


Daja grinned and rubbed her palms. "I didn't think so."   
  


Tris stretched, finished her tea. "Is it time to make the meal yet?" asked Tris, looking sleepy. The tea was working by calming her down.

  
"You'd better get to it. You and Daja have that duty tonight, I think," Lark said. Daja nodded and looked at Tris. "What should we make?" 

  
"Something that isn't hot. I don't need more heat than there is," Rosethorn muttered as she staggered in the door. Briar greeted her with a smile and a nod.  
  


"Any suggestions?" Briar asked her.  
  


"Cold sliced meat on bread. We can make sandwiches. They're quick, easy, and not too unhealthy," Rosethorn said. "Plus, it's food. I need some. I'm starving."  
  


"You sound tired, too. What have you been doing today?" Sandry asked.   
  


"I've been in Crane's greenhouse," she grumbled. "He asked me to try and freshen his plants up some with that plant food."   
  


"And you actually did it?" Daja probed, her mouth hanging open in shock. "But you and Crane never work together by choice..."  
  


Rosethorn glowered at them all. "I could care less about Crane. I did it for the plants, not for him. I'm not letting his plants die. Get that much straight."  
  


"Oh," remarked Tris quietly. She turned to Daja. "Let's go to Gorse and get dinner. We'll be back." They made a hasty getaway - Rosethorn was in a particularly unhappy mood, not that Tris had been any better five minutes ago.  
  


Lark smiled at Rosethorn. "Tea, my dear?" she asked.  
  
---  
  
After dinner and clean-up, the four headed to the roof to cool off. The stars were brighter than they'd been earlier that week, so maybe the haze was wearing off. The sky was cloudless and beautiful, the full moon glimmering peacefully. Sandry braided her hair, while Daja stood, gripping the chimney, looking out to sea and smelling the salt. Tris was looking at constellations, while Briar snoozed lazily. 

  
"If he's so tired, he might as well go to bed," murmured Daja.  
  


"We all ought to go to bed. We did really good work today, and we'll be drained in the morning without some extra sleep," Sandry reasoned.  
  


"Then why aren't you in bed?" Tris asked.   
  


"Because it's a pretty night. Because I'm too awake to go to bed. Because I don't want to waste my life sleeping. Because I like staying up here and talking," Sandry answered.  
  


"Well, Briar would probably not agree to the last three," Daja said, "but I think he likes the night also. He just wouldn't admit he likes the view up here. He doesn't want anyone thinking he's gone soft.'"   
  


Tris chuckled. "He wants to be like a man, I bet," she laughed with a bit of scorn.   
  


"In my mind, he's the same little boy that came to us so many years ago. He's still a sneak and a thief, and he's still spunky and rough, like he just came out of jail. He'll never lose the street," Sandry argued promptly.

  
"I said he wants to be. That doesn't mean he is," responded Tris. _He looks more like one, she added.   
  
_

A voice called from downstairs. "Sandry, you have a visitor." The speaker was Rosie.   
  


Sandry blinked. _For me, and only me?__ I didn't see anyone walking by! But, then again, was   
I even looking?_ she thought.

  
"Who is it?" she called down. 

  
"Come and see," Rosethorn snapped. Sandry sighed and slid on her bottom to the ladder, where she disappeared down back into the house.  
  


"Wonder who it is," Daja muttered.  
  


"Quiet. I can hear things downstairs on the wind, don't you remember?" Tris said. "Let me concentrate." She grabbed a nearby tuft of air and unrolled it to flow from the kitchen up the stairs right to her ears. She could hear everything in the kitchen perfectly. She only hoped that Sandry wouldn't see the glimmer of magic on the breeze, but that wasn't likely, since magic didn't catch anyone's eye in the spelled kitchen, with its already magicked herbs and symbols for health and purity. To see the silver glimmers was normal, and Sandry probably wouldn't notice it.

  
Daja silenced as Tris heard Sandry slip down the stairs and into the kitchen. Tris heard her gasp slightly. Tris wished she could slip into Sandry's head and see from her eyes, but Sandry would sense it, and she wouldn't like it.   
  


"Raeldro!" Sandry exclaimed downstairs. "What a pleasant surprise!" Tris bristled. Despite everything, she still didn't like the man. She heard skirts sweeping; Sandry was probably dipping into that elegant curtsy of hers.   
  


Down in the kitchen, Raeldro smiled at Sandry. "How are you?" he asked her with his monotonous voice. 

  
"I'm doing well. Thank you," Sandry answered. She knew any minute, her face would flush a shade of pink in excitement. That was going to be embarrassing, and she considered running off to hide to avoid it, but Raeldro had a request for her. 

  
"Would you join me for a brief walk?" he asked her quietly. "Do you mind?" he added to Rosethorn. 

  
"I'm not her nanny. She can do whatever she wants," Rosethorn stated acidly. She stalked off sulkily to bottle some herbs. That left Sandry and Raeldro alone, since Lark had retired to bed early.  
  


"I'd be more than happy to oblige you," Sandry said with a smile, her manners courteous, hardly betraying her caged excitement. Raeldro nodded to her, and they exited.   
  


Tris stopped listening on the wind. She let the breeze go free to sail into the sky. "I have to see where they're going," said Tris hurriedly, crawling over the thatched roof to peer over the edge.

  
"Who?" Daja asked. Quickly, Tris explained the conversation. Daja hadn't heard the conversation. Though she had previously been able to hear voices on the wind, that was before Sandry separated their magics. Now, she wasn't able to, though she still could do some things her friends could do.

  
Daja grinned happily when Tris was done. "Well," she said, seating herself beside Tris on the edge of the roof. "So perhaps the Kin of the Earth has singled out our Lady." She smiled slightly.  
  


"Why are you happy?" Tris hissed. "I don't like that man."   
  


"Why not? He never did anything to you," Daja stated.  
  


"Well, I just don't like strangers in general, even, and Raeldro's no different. He's too powerful. He makes me nervous," Tris admitted. "It makes me shiver to think about the power he's got." 

  
Daja sighed. "Our Niko sees everything, and he'd see Raeldro messing with the power of the earth, if he was doing so."

  
"I know. I just..." Tris hesitated. 

  
"Look, there they are! I see them," Daja interrupted. "They're at the gate."

  
"Who?" said a sleepy voice. The voice belonged to Briar.

  
"Go to bed, Briar. You look worn out," Daja ordered.

  
"Who's going where?" he said tiredly, ignoring her. "And where's Sandry gone to?"

  
"Look," Daja said simply, pointing to the two figures walking in the distance. 

  
"It's Sandry," Briar realized. "And is that man Raeldro Earthkin?" He now sounded perfectly awake.

  
"Sure is. He came to visit her and take a walk with her," Daja said. She couldn't hold back a smirk.

  
"Good for her," said Briar, though his voice was slurred with tiredness. Tris grunted her disapproval, while Briar and Daja gave her sideways glances. 

  
"What's your problem?" Daja cried, exasperated. "Maybe you don't like Raeldro Earthkin, but Sandry does. Can't you be at least happy that she got what she wanted? She got his attention. It's all she's been thinking about for the last few weeks. She's surely thrilled, and you can't even feel slightly happy for her!"

  
Tris looked down. "I won't be happy for her. I can't. But I'm not going to show any disapproval," Tris compromised. "How's that?"

  
"Fair enough," Daja said with a frown.   
  


Briar groaned. "You sniffers can spy and girl-gab all you want. But I don't want to, and I'm going to bed!" He hopped down the ladder, leaving Tris and Daja to spy alone.   
  
---

Sandry and Raeldro were making polite conversation. More and more, Sandry was wondering if there was a specific reason that he had asked her to walk. However, soon enough, Sandry didn't care if there was a reason after all. All in all, she was walking with Raeldro Earthkin, and wasn't that what mattered?

  
They walked in the dark, their path lit by the stone that Sandry had hanging around her neck. It was the same stone that her friends had given her years ago the aid in her fear of the dark. She smiled as he nodded and spoke in a serene voice, telling her a story about some adventure he'd had on the way to Winding Circle; she laughed along and told him stories about her friends, mentioning the story of the light-globe and her thankfulness to them. 

Raeldro was very interested. "You speak very highly of your friends," he murmured. "They must be very important to you."  
  


"They are," Sandry said with a smile. "They're so close to me, sometimes I wonder if we all aren't one person. I can see myself in all of them, like they see themselves in me. It's very confusing, I must admit, but I'm so grateful for them. I don't know where I'd be without them."  
  


"You're very lucky to have them," he said quietly. He looked forlorn. "I have no one to thank for anything. No one has ever done anything for me." He shook his head.  
  


"Does that have something to do with why I'm out here?" Sandry said in a voice equally as soft. She had a feeling where this was headed, and that feeling sent a shiver up her spine all the way to her face, where it bloomed in a pinkish blush.  
  


Raeldro's face did not change. "Yes."  
  


Sandry grinned. "If you're looking for a friend, I'll be here for you. I'll look at you as a person, not as anything more or less," she promised.   
  


Raeldro smiled at her, a small speck of life in his eyes. "I'll do the same for you. Thank you, Sandry."  
  


The rest of the walk was much more natural. The conversation was not strange and quiet; it was now loose, easygoing, relaxed. Sandry discovered many, many things about Raeldro's past, but more importantly, she learned about his personality.   
  


Raeldro was a strange sort of man, she came to realize. Though she didn't know the full extent of his past, it seemed that his past was humble, while his present was not. He did not seem happy, or terribly grateful for his ability; he felt a bit as though he had been chosen.

  
Sandry liked his sense of humor. He had that sense of humor that was sarcastic and witty like Tris's, but Raeldro's was also more sly and flirty. Sandry didn't dare think his flirting comments were meant to be taken seriously, but she really wondered when Raeldro winked at her. 

  
All in all, Sandry realized, Raeldro was a man. He was a mage, too, but he was very human. He felt love and pain and envy and loss as would any other person would. He wasn't any different, really, except for all the power he possessed. Sandry looked beyond that and saw a man who was quiet, fun, and interesting - and she loved him.

  
Three hours of playing and laughing had passed before it occurred to Sandry that the others might be worried about her. Little did she know that Tris and Daja were peering into the darkness from Tris's bedroom window, searching for them in the night, panic evident on their faces.   
  


"I do hope you will enjoy me again. I enjoyed myself," said Raeldro with a sideways glance as they walked in the dark towards Discipline cottage.   
  


"As did I," Sandry replied.   
  


"Thank you for coming," said Raeldro.

  
"There's no need to thank me," Sandry said with a smile. She took his hand in hers. She was slightly trembling. "I'd have done it sooner, had you asked." She paused briefly. "Why _did_ you ask me as opposed to my friends, anyways?"

  
Raeldro glanced at her slyly, his hazel eyes piercing through the dark. "I had a feeling about you, Sandry. A premonition, shall I call it, came to me. I dreamt that great things would come to me as a result of your affection."

  
"Affection?" Sandry asked. She touched his arm, and they both paused. _Has he realized? Does he know that he makes my heart flutter whenever he walks by? Does he suspect?_ she asked herself in a worried rush.

  
"Affection, yes," Raeldro said softly. His voice dropped to the quietest whisper, and he drew close to her ear so she might hear him. "I see great things for you and me, Sandry," he cooed. "Many great things."

  
Her eyes were wide as he kissed her cheek right by the ear where he'd been talking into. "We've arrived at Discipline. Time to go home. Sweet dreams, Sandry," he said, letting go of her hand. 

  
"Good night, Raeldro," she told him, her face flushed. She pushed through the gate, ignoring the loud banging noise it made as it slammed closed. She kept glancing back at him, her eyes only finding his own in the dark, nothing else. Sandry slipped into the door quietly, and she was gone from Raeldro's sight. 

  
As soon as the door closed, Sandry leaned against it, her back to the wood. She was sighing heavily when two pairs of feet stumbled down the stairs in a mad run to reach her. Daja and Tris were thrown into relief by the light that glimmered from Sandry's stone.  
  


"Where have you been?" hissed Daja in a soft voice.   
  


"Shush, you're being much too loud!" growled Tris. "You'll wake Briar and the dedicates," she added. "But do you realize how long it's been? I thought he'd kidnapped you!"

  
"You're too distrusting of him, Tris," chided Sandry. "He's a wonderful man, an absolutely wonderful man."

  
"We never should have let her go," mumbled Daja. "It's nearly midnight, and you're babbling because you're so exhausted. Go to bed."

  
"No!" Sandry protested. "I'm glad I went. I learned so much about him, Daja. He's so ... well, he's human, Daja, a real human. He isn't a god, and he's not a prophet. He's still a man, only he's got a good amount of power. And he's a good man, too, one who's quiet and gentle and beautiful in heart... and body, too." She was rambling out of excitement. 

  
"Is there a moral to be learned here?" grumbled Tris. 

  
"Yes! You have to understand that we can't be wary of him any more, and that means you, Tris. He's not a bad person, and he isn't going to turn on us. He's in the same fix we're all in. He might die, just like we all might. We have to help him, and he's going to need our help, because we've all got to work together to fix this! Don't you understand? He needs us. He's just one small person with a job much too large, and we can't let him take this job alone!" Sandry gasped.

  
"Is that what you want, Sandry? For us to try and trust him, to try and understand him?" Daja asked. "Is that what it's about?"

  
"Exactly," Sandry sighed.

  
"What a moving speech," said a voice sarcastically. "Now, can you girls stop your chatter and let me get some winks? You're louder than any geese I've ever heard, but just as annoying."

  
"Briar," snapped Daja, whirling on the boy. He stood in his doorway, leaning against the frame, his eyes glittering wickedly in the shine of Sandry's light. He clutched a large sheet around him.   
  


Daja commanded him to not sneak up on them ever again. Briar smiled evilly and wrapped his sheet around him more tightly. "It's getting colder again, just like it was thought to be," he muttered.  
  


"You shut it, or you'll wake up Rosethorn," Tris growled. "And she won't be pleased with us, so you better not rouse her!"   
  


"Too late," grunted someone from the end of the room. Sandry shrieked and ducked behind Daja as Rosethorn entered the room. "I'm awake now. What are you all doing up?"   
  


"Sandry just got back," Daja said. "We were waiting for her. We went to bed about an hour after she left, but then Tris woke me up an hour later and said that Sandry wasn't back, so we waited in her room and watched for her to come back. We were worried that ... well, we didn't know what had possibly happened, but we were sure it was something."  
  


"Kidnapped. I thought she'd been kidnapped," Tris added, looking fearful of Rosethorn's wrath.   
  


"And then these bleaters started talking and woke me up!" Briar complained, huddling in his sheets. "Can we close the windows? It's freezing."   
  


"It isn't that cold," Sandry protested, but a shivering Rosethorn was already at it, and Briar was right behind her. 

  
You're just being so... so light-headed over Raeldro that you aren't thinking straight. Close these windows with me, and then go to bed. I can see that you're sleepy, Daja advised. Sandry nodded and obeyed, having lofty daydreams about Raeldro.   
  
---  
  
The next day during their visit to the earth's core, they found it to be significantly larger than the day before. All were excited and even more encouraged to work hard in their magic-workings that day.   
  


Niko was pleased even more so that day than the previous one, and he promptly gave them the next day off for him to discuss something with Moonstream. Sandry immediately had a solution. 

  
"What if we had another trustworthy supervisor?" she asked Niko as he escorted them back to Discipline. They all shivered. The day was getting cold. It was amazing to think that yesterday they had all been sweating.  
  


"Do you have someone in mind?" Niko replied with a raised eyebrow. He folded his arms in for warmth.

Sandry grinned up at him. "What about Raeldro Earthkin?"  
  


Tris could have strangled her. Despite all that Sandry had said, about how nice and sweet he was, she wouldn't believe it unless she saw it herself. And until that happened, she didn't like Raeldro any more. Daja was so shocked at Sandry that she stopped in her tracks. Briar understood immediately her intentions. He was no fool.  
  


"I'm afraid that isn't possible. He will be talking with me to Moonstream as well," Niko stated, observing the young mages' odd actions.   
  


"What do you talk about at such meetings anyway?" Tris asked, glaring at Sandry, though she addressed Niko.  
  


"Well, if there are any leads on the culprit, primarily. If any mage finds information on this circumstance in a book, since there are hundreds of researchers on the job, he or she tells   
us. So far, there has been nothing. Apparently this is the first time something like this has happened," Niko said.

"Maybe the last," said Briar with a gulp.  
  


"Nonsense. We'll get through, you'll see," Niko told them.

  
"We will? Have you seen the future?" Sandry said with a gasp.

  
"I have seen many, many potential futures, Sandry," Niko explained. "I discuss those with Moonstream, too. But they are only potential. Only one will triumph, and that one could be the bleakest of them all."

  
The group each made their own motions for good luck and protection, chattering as they did so. Niko continued walking with them as he spoke. "So, I'm afraid you'll have to amuse yourselves tomorrow," he said. He grinned crookedly. "I hope you don't mind."  
  


"Not at all!" Daja said, opening the gate to the house. "Have fun at your meeting tomorrow,   
Niko."   
  


"As always, I will," he said grimly, half-sighing.   
  


The rest bid farewell. The moment they burst through the door, Daja and Tris started to bomb Sandry with questions.  
  


"Why did you do that?" snapped Tris after slamming the door closed. "You had no right! It's a group decision, and we didn't ever decide to do that!"  
  


"Raeldro, lead us?" Daja asked. "I don't understand why! I know you want a break, too, so what're you pushing for?"  
  


"I don't even like him," exclaimed Tris, "and you invite him to lead us to the core of the earth! I don't trust him!"  
  


"I see," said Briar quietly, and the house fell still.  
  


"What do you see?" Daja asked. "Tell me!" She sounded anxious.  
  


Briar put an arm around Daja. "You and I both know, Daja, that Sandry's got a little affection for a certain someone," he said softly. "Naturally, she wants to see him whenever she can. So..."

  
"...You invited him to lead our little journey," said Tris, finishing Briar's statement. "Just because you have a little affection for him?"

  
"They say love makes you do crazy things," Briar argued with a shrug.

  
Tris stormed up the stairs to her room. "I don't like him!" she cried, pushing her door closed behind her. It boomed shut. Sandry was stunned downstairs. 

  
"I ... I'm sorry. I was being selfish." She sniffled apologetically, glancing to the staircase.

  
"Don't worry about her," said Daja with a sigh. "That's just Tris being herself. You made her a little nervous, that's all."   
  


"She's right, though. I didn't have any right," Sandry said. "I just..."  
  


Briar assured her, "You usually know what you're doing when you make decisions for all of us, only this time, Tris isn't agreeing with the rest of us. That's not your fault!"  
  


Sandry sighed. "I won't do it again, though, to be safe."  
  


A few seconds later, a clunking noise came from the stairway. Tris appeared at the foot of the stairs, looking ashamed. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," she grumbled. "Just, next time, could you please _ask us before you do things like that?" she added._

  
"I'll ask you first, from now on," Sandry swore. Tris smiled gratefully.

  
"Now that that's settled, who's making the meal?" Briar asked. "I'm hungry."

  
"We are," said Daja, motioning to herself and Briar. Briar groaned his disapproval. 

  
"Why is it that whenever I have to cook, it's always with you? You never like how I cook!" he grumbled. "It isn't my fault that I'm not a great chef. I just eat the food, not make it."

  
"You'll have to learn how to cook if you want to survive," Sandry said logically. 

  
"I can cook!" protested Briar. "Just not to her satisfaction!" he argued, pointing at Daja. Daja laughed and put a hand on his shoulder. 

"I'll give you an easy job, then," she said, picking up a loaf of bread from the counter. She tossed it to Briar. "Cut the bread. Can you handle that?" The girls laughed, while he scowled.

  
"I can cut the bread, and I can cut your throat, too," he muttered.  
  
---  
  
The next day, the quartet began their chores. The day was hot again, in contrast to the day before. The weather changes had meant trouble for the garden outside of Discipline. Many warm-weather plants had been planted for the hot weather. But with the cold front the previous day, many of the plants looked very ill. Rosie didn't think they could be saved. Daja's metal felt stronger to her, at least. She considered using her afternoon to make a new metal cap for her staff. Tris couldn't predict any weather patterns, which made her cranky. The uneasiness in the air made her uneasy. Sandry's weaving was going better, but it still wasn't as good as it should be.  
  


They were all miserable, especially one redheaded mage.  
  


Tris picked up the rag and thrust it into the bucket, soaking up the soapy water. Falling to her hands and knees, she began to vigorously scrub the floor with the wet mop. She sighed. Floor-scrubbing was certainly her least favorite chore! She despised crawling around on her hands and knees like an animal, with her skirts getting damp and her glasses repeatedly falling off. She wished someone else had this job as opposed to her.  
  


At least she had Briar to chat with as he dusted. There was, however, the fact that he wasn't doing most of the talking. He merely nodded to her or spoke a simple, rough sentence when asked a question. His mind was elsewhere.  
  


What Tris didn't know was that Briar was not trying to ignore her or the like. He had been thinking about love, contrary to his earlier denial of the matter. He had been thinking of Sandry running through the yard, gabbing in her way about Raeldro. In a way, it made him sort of jealous. It wasn't because he felt any sort of feelings for Sandry. But he wondered if any right-minded girl would really feel something for him. 

_I'm not right-minded. How should I expect a girl to love me and be so? _he thought. 

Thinking about love made him think about girls. Sandry was beautiful, but she was a bit of a brat, and he knew that Sandry was far too civilized for his liking. On the other hand, Daja might as well have been a boy. She was one of the few girls he knew in Winding Circle that wore pants and could fight like him. Briar knew that he could never feel softly for a girl who wasn't soft herself. 

Aside from the fact that they didn't qualify, these girls had always been like family. They were his best friends, housemates, fellow mages. He simply couldn't see them like that. 

  
Tris, then, was the next he thought of. _She's mean. She's meaner than I am. And she's no great beauty. _But there was the fact that Tris saw some things just like he did. Tris could understand very well a childhood lacking in paternal love. Tris wasn't afraid to say what she felt. And, though she seemed as hard as a seashell, she knew him and the other girls, and she valued them so much. Perhaps it was because she was so afraid to lose them and have no one again.

_She's just Tris, _Briar thought with an internal smile, laughingly. _She's my sister, too. _And yet, he thought about how she had taught him to read, how she had defended them all from the pirates, how sometimes she would let herself show a little. Briar thought suddenly that he would be afraid to lose her, too.   
  
Accidentally, due to the fact that he was oblivious to his dusting, Briar dropped his dusting cloth. He bent over to pick it up, and yelped as he banged his head on Tris's own. 

  
She, in her gloomy thoughts about the antisocial Briar Moss, had not been paying attention and had crawled right into Briar's head while she mopped. She gasped as her skull contacted his.

  
She rocked back, sitting on her feet. She set down the rag with a wet plopping sound to the floor and rubbed her head.  
  


"Sorry," said Briar with a sincere and apologetic voice. "Didn't see you."

  
Tris nodded in agreement while simultaneously accepting his apology. She then felt her face go red with embarrassment. She had made quite a fool of herself! She was angry at him and yet frustrated. 

  
Tris, hoping Briar hadn't seen her blush, picked up her cloth and continued to scourge the floor. She pretended it had never happened, and wiped her forehead.

  
Briar, fortunately for his female companion, had not noticed her antics. He carefully bent over to retrieve his kerchief, which he had failed to pick up on the first attempt. Once he had it, he fingered the fabric a moment. It was quite tough, worn. He wondered if it might fall apart, the threads all scattered; he imagined Tris picking up the pieces. This amused him. He then smiled faintly and proceeded with his duty, silent as the dead of night, his thoughts not on his work at all.   
  


He glanced off into the distance, pondering something as he worked.  
  


Tris glanced up a moment at Briar. There he was, standing, looking very tall, his eyes fixed on something outside the window. His green eyes shone, and a small smile played across his face as he thought of something. 

  
Tris's heart jumped a moment. Watching him standing there with the sun glistening all over him, Tris couldn't help but to smile. He had grown much more handsome than any of the young men at Growing Circle.   
  


A slight humming sound approached the cottage. In the doorway appeared a rather mussed Sandry and a grinning Daja, the former being the one making the musical noise. Sandry was the one to notice something unusual in the room. 

For once, Briar was very quiet. That in itself was a rarity. Even more so was the fact that he was wearing an especially thoughtful look on his face, as if he were in another world. Tris held a slight blush on her face in addition to Briar's strange behavior. _A blush_? thought Sandry, puzzled. _The unaffected Tris?__ It was another once-in-a-lifetime moment. She began to wonder about the events of the past few moments that had caused such uncharacteristic behaviors in her friends. _

However, she looked up to see Tris blinking at her, and she decided that she ought to ponder such questions later. Now was certainly not the time, when people were staring at her so.

  
"Yes? Coming in?" Tris asked Sandry. Tris was half-bent over her bucket, the rag in one hand.   
  


"No. I don't want to muss up your pretty clean floor," Sandry said cheerfully.  
  


Tris rolled her eyes. "Ha ha. Don't you have a job to do, too, rather than make fun of the fact that I was assigned the worst job?" 

  
"I'm breaking for a moment. And, contrary to what you might believe, Tris, fetching food from Dedicate Gorse _is_ a job that requires effort. Do you know how heavy that meat is? If I didn't rest, I'd be fainting in this heat." Tris grunted something about spoiled noble girls who didn't know what real work was. Sandry missed the comment. 

  
"And are you so tired, too, Daja?" asked Tris aloud.   
  


Daja growled, "_You_ try sitting in that latrine house, which is stuffy and hot, scrubbing gods-know-what of the floor." Tris shuddered.

  
Perhaps there were benefits from mopping. She thought, _It__ doesn't smell in here. It's not that hot, either. This place smells like honey and herbs and cool breeze. Besides all that, Briar's here. She paused in her thoughts. _I wish he were talking. _Again, she grew frustrated._

  
"Well, can I pass anything out since you aren't coming in?" Tris asked the girls.

  
"No; we were just coming to visit on the way to the water well," explained Daja.   
  


"You want water, eh?" Tris snickered. "I'll give you water!" Tris flicked water droplets from her wet fingers onto her friends. Taken aback, Sandry squealed, while Daja gasped in mock horror. Then, Daja chuckled, her voice low, and Sandry followed suit, her laughter more like high bells.   
  


Daja peered around Tris to watch Briar. He was staring aimlessly out of the window, not even rubbing the glass bottle with his fabric. He just stood and looked off into the distance. He hadn't made a sound the entire time the girls had walked in.   
  


Daja waved at him and snickered. Briar still didn't move. "You there, statue? Liven up a little!" teased Daja. She expected a quick retort or a growl with thief-curses alongside it, or at least a glare, but Briar was still quiet and motionless. Only when Briar could _feel six eyes boring into him as they stared hard for long moments did he blink, turn his head, and ask in a puzzled voice, "Huh?"_

  
The girls suddenly surrendered to cries of laughter. Now assorted swear words were directed to them as they roared. 

  
Daja, streaming eyes and all, exited the room, Sandry right behind her. "Briar's gone soft and silent," Daja giggled. 

  
"Or he's insane," Sandry added. "He's so quiet and peaceful-looking. He acts like a lovesick teenager." Sandry froze, about to ask a silly question. But she supposed she ought to not put her foot in anymore and kept mum.  
  
---

  
Given a chance at free time before midday, the four decided that they might take a walk through the grounds of Winding Circle. The roof could wait to be re-thatched. 

  
Strolling through little groves of trees and streams, they couldn't have been more content. Daja walked with her valued staff, digging a small, shallow hole into the ground when the end touched the earth. Briar shuffled around, peeking at sick plants and shuddering with discomfort. He kept attempting to squeeze out of his shoes, but Sandry insisted it wasn't proper now that they were near adults. Sandry was giggling and whispering to Daja, while Tris made faces at them for discussing their love interests. She didn't have the time for that, did she? Briar snapped at them repeatedly to stop the "girl-gab." 

  
As if on cue, a swooping dark red cape fluttered by. Sandry turned immediately, calling out the name of the figure. Raeldro swerved back to see her. His blood-red outfit brought out the reds and hazels in his eyes while clashing with his creamy light skin. She thought he looked exotic, heavenly, fantastic. 

  
"Good day, Sandry," Raeldro said. "It's nice to see all of you, actually. Niko tells me you've been doing very well. Would you care to join me for a walk tonight, Sandry?"   
  


"Of course! I'd love to go!" Sandry replied. Raeldro smiled and he swung away from them with a wink.   
  


"Until then, my lady," he murmured. With that, he was walking hurriedly to the Hub.   
  


All three sets of eyes turned to a pink-faced Sandry. "Friends, eh?" Tris challenged. "He _likes_ you, Sandry."

  
"Nothing of the sort!" protested Sandry. She buried her face in her hands. "I didn't expect this ..." she told her palms. "This is so sudden..."

  
"You weren't expecting him to like you back, were you?" Daja asked. "You didn't think you were going to actually have to take action on this, right?"

  
"I didn't expect this!" she repeated, pulling her hands from her face and wailing as they walked. "I like Raeldro, I really do, but I was just getting to the point where I was getting over him, like Daja said I ought to do, and then he has to start being so dratted nice..."  
  


"You asked for it," warned Tris.   
  


"I did, didn't I?" cried Sandry. "I wanted this!"  
  


Briar rolled his eyes at her. "And now you have it. What's the big deal?"  
  


Sandry looked like she might explode with exasperation. "It's confusing! First, I can't get him off my head. Now, I'm trying to forget it, and he's coming after me now! What do I do?"  
  


The others stared at her blankly. "I don't have an answer for you. Don't you have decide for yourself?" Daja asked.   
  


Sandry sighed. "That's what I was afraid of."  
  


Tris groaned. "Well, make your decision later. Right now, I'm trying to enjoy the nice day," Tris told her friend.   
  


"She's right, you know," Briar said. "It's a beautiful day." The four gazed up. The sun shone brightly, making it overly warm, but that was alright. After all, they were all together. That was what they really needed to make it a beautiful day.  
  


Daja's staff thudded as they walked, striking as the Hub clock drummed. She heard metals clinking in the background at some of the smith shops, the sound in tune with the many others. It was music to her ears. Sandry closed her eyes as she walked, letting a cool breeze wash over her face and through her loose hair. Tris gazed in admiration at the sky, peering at the clouds that swarmed across the expanse of bright, clear blue. The sight was one to behold.   
  


Tris bumped into Briar as she walked, paying little attention to anything else. She hardly noticed, but Briar was shoved out of the way by her shoulder. Playfully, he pushed her back. She whirled on him. "What was that for?!" she gasped, looking angry.  
  


"You bumped into me," Briar said. 

"Well, excuse me," huffed Tris, narrowing her gray eyes at him. "But it was an accident. That's no reason to go _touching me when I'm trying to look at the clouds." _

"Don't like being _touched, _Coppercurls?" Briar asked, laying a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. "No," she snapped. 

He grinned at her and grabbed at her waist with two hands. For a moment, she was shocked, perhaps excited. "Briar!" she cried. "Excuse you!" The emotion changed when he began to tickle her mercilessly. 

Tris laughed against her will as his hands traveled up and down her sides. Sandry and Daja were laughing as well, and she thought she heard Daja say, "That's cruel of you, Briar." 

Briar, stop! Really! Tris thought to him alone. 

Try to stop me. She could sense the laughter in the voice of his mind. Did he sound a bit flirtatious to her? It was impossible. The look on his face was one of sweet satisfaction, like a child who has won a game of hide-and-seek. He was certainly not flirting. 

Really, Briar! I want you to stop! Of course, her laughing cheeks betrayed her thoughts to him. 

Oh, you don't really mean that, he replied. For a brief moment, she felt as though he had read her mind; perhaps she didn't want him to stop. 

Perhaps she didn't mind his hands around her waist.

The thought infuriated her; she was not angry with him, only with herself for thinking in such a way about him. Why was she thinking this way? A part of her blamed him; if he hadn't gotten so attractive, she never would have looked at him with a degree of admiration and exhilaration.

Her frustration surfaced violently. The laughter stopped like a storm rushing upon the scene. He felt her fingers pry his away with strength unknown to him. His hands were off her before he knew what was happening. She shoved him back furiously. "Cut it out!" 

"Sorry," he shot back in an exasperated tone, thrown off by her attitude towards him. Sandry and Daja eyed each other once before continuing with their walk in a normal fashion. 

Mopping must have been miserable, thought Daja to Sandry.

  
---  
  
In the men's baths, alone, Briar remembered the days of his past, when he did not bathe. He was disgusted with the thought of it, now; he scrubbed his arms with unusual ferocity, trying to peel off the layer of dust that had formed there after chores. 

Yes, things had changed in three years. The girls were different in more than appearance. Now he was not living with other children; he was living with women, women who were sexually and emotionally developed. Hormones had begun to work their own magic. Daja had been kissing Kirel in the smith shop, and Sandry had developed her whimsical fancy for Raeldro Earthkin. 

He didn't mind this. He had to listen to their chatter a bit more because of it, but he had learned to tune them out whenever he heard the words "love" come out of their mouths. Briar did wonder, though, how it would fit into their lives. For as long as he could remember, he had been the only male equal that the girls had known. What would happen to his position in their lives if those romances escalated? What would things have been like if Kirel and Daja had continued their romance? What if Raeldro became a permanent part of Sandry's life? Would he take backseat?

He did not think so, or he liked not to think so. After all, he would be sure to not let them wander too far from his protection; he wanted to be close enough so that he could defend the girls against unworthy men if need be. Briar knew that he had made a definite place in the lives of Sandry and Daja; other men would be temporary, but he would always be there. 

  
It comforted him to think that at least Tris wasn't falling in love with anyone, not to his knowledge. That was one less voice to hear chattering at night about love.

  
---  
  


Daja was in her room, cleaning her _suraku as she often did. As she polished the brass straps, she saw her reflection in them and grinned her flashing white teeth at herself. The colors made her eyes look as hazel as Raeldro's own._

Daja's thoughts floated to Sandry. Daja had been thinking often about what Sandry had said at the well. _Sandry, Sandry, dear_ saati, moaned Daja to herself. There was nothing wrong with romance; but Sandry, in Daja's opinion, was far too devoted to the man. No 18-year-old should ever be that obsessed with a man.

_What are you getting yourself into?_ she thought to herself. _You have fallen into a romance with Raeldro Earthkin, which isn't that surprising since he is such an admirable character. But I believe you've already come to push the limit between a little, innocent romance and a large, out-of-control fling, and I'm not sure where it will take you next. Oh, gods, be careful in your meddling, Sandry, saati_. I hope you're going to be able to contain this yourself, because I just can't do it for you!__

   
What scared Daja the most about Sandry's playful crush on Raeldro was the fact that her infatuation was getting to a point where the sense was being knocked out of her. She had noted the misty look in her eyes when Sandry had said that maybe she _would_ follow Raeldro around the world. Later, it had made Daja feel better that she'd taken it back, but she couldn't stop herself from being uneasy.  
  


Like Sandry had said, Raeldro was only a man, one man. Nobody could leave a place, a home, that he or she loved, for one simple man, no matter how gorgeous his eyes were.   
  


But at once Daja wondered if _she_ would leave Winding Circle for someone if she was forced to make that decision - could she? She thought of how she had been attracted to Kirel. Had he asked her, then, to leave Winding Circle, would she have gone? It was tempting. Kirel and Raeldro were both simply men, but they threatened Winding Circle's greatest mages.

Daja asked herself, _Could I leave my home for a person? _She could make herself a new home if the situation arose, but would it ever be the same? No, _never_.   
  


Would she be willing to lose a part of her - the one place she'd ever belonged - in order to get back another part, the love of a human being? How could she make a choice like that? But if turning Kirel down meant she could lose him, then what might she say to the proposal? After all, Winding Circle _was only a place. And, yet, at the same time, Kirel was only a man_

And as simple as they both were, Daja loved them both. They meant so much more to her than a human and a place. They were the essence of her being, the fruit of her happiness. 

  
She could never chose between two of the things she loved the most. She would never allow herself to lose either of them, especially to one another. And Daja hoped with a strange knot of despair in her stomach that she would never be placed in a situation where a choice like that was given to her. She would spend an eternity delaying her response.

  
But Sandry had spent half a blink in making her decision. How could she have said, "Maybe," with that misty look in her eyes when Daja had asked her? How had she said the word with such certainty?

  
Daja shook her head, letting water droplets fly. This was certainly out of hand!

And she then thought of Kirel, briefly, as she packaged the bottles neatly inside her survival kit. She thought of his kiss, and his taste. A part of her missed that experience with Kirel. But a kiss meant nothing, and it did not necessarily mean anything more than physical attraction. At times, she wondered if romance at age 18 was simply a game of curiosity being created and fulfilled in a cycle that meant little more than nothing. Daja wondered if there could have been anything between herself and Kirel. 

As previously stated, she did not think on it long. There was no more door-making in Hajra, no more short kisses by the anvil with the bellows in her hands. There was not time for romance.

---  
  


Tris sat in her special spot, the wooded area, tracing her fingers over the glass on the ground. She had a book, too, but it was open, unread. The words meant little while thoughts ran through her head like jackrabbits.   
  


Her mind was wandering to and fro. First she kept thinking about Sandry and Raeldro. As much as she thought that he had to be good if he had Sandry's approval, Tris did not like Raeldro. She tried to convince herself that it was just her uneasiness at strangers, but something more tingled inside her. 

  
Something flooded her. It was an idea, an inkling. She wasn't... jealous of Raeldro, was she? Nonsense! _I am not jealous of him, she told herself. __I am not jealous of the fact that Sandry thinks about him so much! I'm not jealous of the fact that she loves him... _

And then it hit her. She was a little bit jealous, wasn't she? After all, all that Sandry talked about was Raeldro. She loved him, or so she claimed. She giggled over him, tried to include him in her life all the time. Didn't it hurt a little that her attention was away from their circle of friends?   
  


Tris wasn't jealous of Kirel and Daja's kiss in Hajra. Perhaps it was because Daja showed little attachment to the events of the past, wanting to put them behind her. Tris only knew one thing: Kirel did not invade her life. Raeldro did. 

While romance had bloomed with her two female friends, there was something else in Tris's mind that bloomed, too. She was certainly finding herself feeling warm and fuzzy inside when it came to a dark-haired plant mage. She certainly remember previously while mopping inside a little flutter that came inside her heart while she was with him. She felt somewhat weak to think on him. How could Tris be attracted to Briar? Dare she think it?

If the man in question were someone else, it would have been different. Romance with Briar was awkward. As much as she realized that Daja and Sandry were familiar with love, she knew that loving Briar was probably very strange to them. Daja and Sandry saw Briar as their brother. They all see each other as family. How could Tris destroy that  and do such a thing? She knew that Sandry and Daja might think it to be almost weird to be attracted to Briar, a person whom they'd all always viewed as one of the family. 

_He is like my brother, too! It's not my damned fault that he turned so beautiful on me in three short years. _She dismissed the thought. There was a difference between being attracted to Briar and being in love with Briar. No, she was not in love. She did not think that any of them were in love at such an age. Briar would develop into a gorgeous young man with a sculpture-like body, as he already was doing, but some things were going to remain the same. He would always be a thief, laughing and easygoing in nature, fearless and shameless. She didn't love that.  _  
  
_

---

The girls all gathered for the next meal, meeting Lark outside of her dormitories; she smiled, wearing one of her many green habits. "Don't you ever get sick of those?" Sandry asked, pulling on a sleeve of the outfit.   
  


Lark eyed her. "I'd be sick if I wore what you wear all the time. This is fine with me," insisted Lark. "Where's Briar?"  
  


"Here," said a voice behind them. They turned to see Briar clad in loose tan breeches and a pale off-white shirt. He wore leather sandals, and his hair was wet from washing.   
  


"C'mon, then. It's midday meal time," Lark told them. They made their way towards Discipline.    
  


Daja grinned at Tris. "Keep an eye on Briar and don't let him poison our drinks. I think he might, just for the purpose of having all the food to himself," she laughed.   
  


"Poison would be too easy, and not painful enough," Briar reasoned, smoothing his hair back. "Besides, I fight fair."  
  


Daja scowled and poked him with her staff. "Well, what are you going to make? I'm starving." She threw her braids over her shoulder.  
  


"Tris, we haven't had salad and soup for a while. Can we make that?" Briar asked. 

Tris nodded. "It's okay with me, as long as everyone else approves." The others nodded in unison. Tris began making a list in her head. "Do we need cream? No, that's in the cold box at the cottage," Tris said to herself. "I don't think we have any broccoli florets, so can we stop at the Hub and pick some up?"  
  


"Kirel!" Daja cried, interrupting Tris. A pale head turned towards them. Kirel smiled when he saw Daja. His hair was made into seemingly millions of long white braids, whipping around his face likes small, lashing cords. He came towards them, very composed, smiling, his white apprentice garb trailing behind him.   
  


"Hello," he said quietly. "How are you all doing? Dedicate Lark, it has been ages since I saw you." 

Lark smiled at his manners. "It seems as though Hajra has treated you well, aside from a bit of sunburn." 

Kirel flitted his pale eyes at her. Truthfully, they were set in a rather red face. "The sun and I don't get along well," he explained. "You all should come visit me and Frostpine. It's a little bit cooler in this heat, being under the shadows of the trees." 

"We've got to re-thatch the roof soon," Tris complained. "We must, before it rains and floods us straight out of Discipline. It might be days before we can come."

"But I want to come to hear about your last three years. Did I tell you that I once lived in Hajra?" The two young men bonded; it was apparent to the women that perhaps Briar was starved to speak to a male his own age. 

Sandry was glancing at Daja, who seemed unaffected. You seem quiet, thought Sandry. I thought you said that you were still friends.

We are, Daja responded quickly.

Then why are you so quiet around him? 

Daja grew very still for a good moment as thoughts churned inside her head. She didn't know why, but her heart thundered. All she could think about was that one kiss, that one brief moment. It was all she could remember. And she remembered why she was attracted to him in the first place; it was not simply a wish to kiss him or to touch him. She felt – perhaps it had been deeper than that all along. 

I just realized that I've missed him terribly. 

The two young men were still talking. "Yes, that building is still there. But, it's not the detention center anymore. They turned it into a market," Kirel responded, his eyes flitting to Daja's. "They've strung up all sorts of things inside it."

"Really?" Briar said. "I was scared to death of that building. That's where they gave me my tattoos. Pretty little things, aren't they?" He showed off the small black crosses on his hands. They all laughed, and Daja still remained in silence.

"Well, I hate to go, but I have to get back home before Frostpine eats the meal without me," Kirel responded. He hugged Lark, Sandry, and Tris, and then shook Briar's hand. There was laughing, jokes about his sunburn and doors. Then, he came to Daja. 

"Perhaps you'll come visit, too," he chuckled nervously. Suddenly, he leaned in, covering her mouth with his swiftly. The others heard her sharp intake of breath, and they gasped themselves. Lark even inserted a rather loud interjection. When Daja opened her eyes, Kirel was gone. 

Daja stared ahead at where he had been standing, utterly shocked. 

"Daja?" asked Sandry, interrupting the silence. But then the sound of nothing resonated again. All eyes were on the dark-skinned girl, who was more silent than a rock.

"Let's… let's go home," Daja said suddenly.

"Come, come," Lark said, shushing her softly. Lark always understood absolutely everything. Daja's staff trembled in her hand. "Walk proudly, Trader girl. Don't frown. We'll get you home, and you can have some soup and salad."

  
---  
  
After the meal, the four retreated to the rooftop. All of them wanted some sort of explanation from Daja, but no one wanted to pressure anything out of her.

  
They sat on the thatching, staring at the sky. Sandry was the first to speak up, as usual.   
  


"So, Daja..." Sandry began. She turned to looking at Daja and paused before she finished.  
  


Daja didn't let her finish. "I don't know the answer," she said.

"I didn't even ask the question yet!" Sandry said, feeling somewhat slighted.

Daja glanced at her, managing a small chuckle. "It doesn't matter what the question really is, _saati__. No matter what you ask me, I still won't know the answer." She leaned back a bit. "I had thought it was just a kiss. I had been attracted to him – and I liked him, too, as a person. But I had gotten the kiss I wanted, that satisfaction. Perhaps it was more than physical attraction all along."_

"Perhaps you should go to talk to him," Sandry suggested.  
  


"Yes," Daja said. "I want to spend some time with him, and Frostpine. I miss Frostpine as much as I miss Kirel. Frostpine has been like a father to me for years. I think I'll go tonight, if no one minds." 

  
Tris nodded. "I understand that." She somewhat did; Niko had been like a father to her as well. She hugged Daja around the shoulder. "Will you give our regards to them, please?"

  
"Of course," Daja said. She hugged Tris back. "Thank you for listening. All of you, thanks." They slipped easily back into relaxation again.  
  
---  
  
As Sandry, Daja, Briar, and Tris sat on the roof, a figure walked by Discipline. Sandry hopped up, saying a quick goodbye, and jumped back into the house. Her skirts made her look silly, floating like a puff down the stairs. The other three heard thudding down the steps as Sandry flew down them. They saw her run out of the house into her garden, through the gate and into the waiting arms of Raeldro. 

  
"She's fast," said Briar, watching them hug. 

  
Tris gave them a glance. She smiled faintly as Raeldro kissed Sandry's cheek, causing her to blush. After all, they were happy together. _I can't grudge her that, she told herself. _

  
Daja stood, leaning against the chimney and holding around it with one arm. "Did Kirel and I look like that?" she asked her companions. Sandry was giggling as she took Raeldro's hand.

  
Briar nodded. "Yes, only a bit quicker than that."   
  
---

  
"It's been a beautiful day, hasn't it?" Raeldro said to Sandry, squeezing her hand.   
  


Sandry looked up to him. A wind whipped around them as she did so, causing his loose hair to brush into his face. His eyes were kind and gentle, mellow and serene. His robe fluttered around him as he smiled at her.

  
"Yes, a beautiful day indeed," Sandry remarked.  
  


Raeldro was chattering about the clearness of the sky. Sandry just liked to hear him talk. She listened and nodded appreciatively as she listened to the melody of his voice.   
  


"You are very lucky, Sandry," said Raeldro quietly. "Your tie with the earth must give you a very special connection to what goes on in it. Does the beautiful day influence how you feel?"  
  


Sandry smiled. "It does. But trouble brews beneath this pretty day." They did pass patches of brown grass, and many of the stones in the walkway were cracked in new places. But, to them, there was nothing but beauty, flowers, gaiety.   
  


Raeldro's face remained unchanged. "I know," he said mournfully, his eyes down. "But the plan will work, if all goes well."

"I don't doubt you and your advice, Raeldro," Sandry assured him. 

  
The dark-haired mage smiled. "You have faith in the goodness of this world, and that is very admirable," he said to her. She blushed at the praise.   
  


They made their way to a small tree grove with a stream flowing through it. Sandry smiled. It was the same place where Sandry and Briar had reunited with Tris weeks ago. Trees made shady spots on the ground, while the glass that Tris had made there reflected the light of the sun.   
  


"Look at right here, even!" exclaimed Raeldro, motioning to the grove they stood in. She had never seen him express any degree of emotion such as this. "Not all the spots are ruined…perhaps there is some grass gone gray, but there are trees standing still. The sun still shines. There's hope. _That's beautiful." _

Sandry sighed, "Is there anything that could make this scene more beautiful?"  
  
He looked at her as the wind whipped through her hair. "You're the final touch," he said. He smiled and leaned in close. "But the question is, if I may touch you…" He looked into her face and saw her mouth trembling, and made his move to kiss her. 

They broke apart after a swift kiss. Sandry's eyes were almost fogged over in her ecstasy. "Raeldro," she whispered to him, "I've wanted you like this ever since you came..."

Shyly, he asked, "Can I kiss you again?" She nodded and his lips came onto hers, more surely this time. Fire met fire there. His lips traveled down her jawline, right by her left ear. They heard people talking. Jumping back with surprise, Raeldro's lips left her skin.   
  


Breathing heavily, Raeldro and Sandry watched two young dormitory members run by in a game of tag.   
  


"Perhaps we ought to go somewhere else," suggested Raeldro. "Unless you want this to become a spectator sport?" Sandry grinned at him. They linked hands and slipped into the patch of trees, hidden from view. She giggled as they found themselves encircled by trees and encompassed in darkness. Raeldro's eyes linked with Sandry's as they whisked through the trees. 

  
Sunshine dotted the earth in glowing tones. A large boulder sat at the base of a rather large tree. As soon as they were certain they were out of view, Sandry giddily collapsed to the ground, her skirts billowing around her. She leaned her back against the boulder, relaxing as she laughed.   
  


A bird settled down a few trees away, watching them with interest. The chickadee's chirp was music to the ears. "Sit with me!" beckoned the young woman, holding out a hand to her standing companion. Raeldro smiled and fell to his knees in front of her. She patted her shoulder and her counterpart crawled over and laid his head there. Smiling, she ran her hands through his hair. They settled down a little as they laid together, Sandry stroking Raeldro's hair.    
  
Suddenly, Raeldro asked, "What happened back there?" He looked at the canopy of the forest, not at Sandry, as if he was afraid of what he might see in Sandry's eyes if he looked there. His lashes fluttered as he blinked repeatedly.

  
Sandry blinked. "You kissed me," she said softly. She wasn't sure what he meant.  
  


"No, aside from that. Something more happened," Raeldro explained. He turned his face to meet her eyes. He looked almost hesitant, almost afraid. Sandry didn't like seeing him being afraid. That one glance shattered all her own self-confidence.  
  


Sandry slid her hand across his cheek. "I think you fell in love with me," she said quietly, smiling faintly, but yet worriedly at once. Was he going to take back what he'd said before? The thought was a haunting one. "But I've already been in love with you."  
  


"Have you? You've got to assure me of that, Sandry. I'm not a confident man," Raeldro begged. It was hard to envision Raeldro as lacking confidence, but Sandry knew she'd do anything to appease him, and if repeating herself would appease him and give him confidence, she'd do it.   
  


Sandry bent close to his face. "I do love you," she confirmed. She pecked his cheek.   
  


"I'm glad," he said, his voice melodious with obvious joy. The change in him was evident; his restraint had left him. "I feel the same, I promise you." Sandry smiled, her eyes bright with happiness, and she bent over to kiss his lips softly. When they broke, Raeldro drew her face down further so that his lips hovered by her ears. 

"Didn't I tell you that there would be great things for us?" he said huskily, his eyelashes brushing her cheek. "I saw this moment in a vision, Sandry, I swear. At first I thought it was a dream, a silly fantasy. Now I see that the vision was a foreshadowing of the future, a future I am glad to accept." He paused for a moment. "You have restored my faith in dreams, Duchess."

Sandry's hair fell from her shoulders loosely to shield their faces from even the birds watching as they met in another passionate embrace.

  
---

They've been gone a while," said Daja half an hour later. Briar half-nodded; he was dozing, the warm air having lulled him to sleep. Tris glanced off of the edge of the roof to the garden below. 

Daja headed for the stairs. "I'm going to go get a drink," she said as she went down into the house. Tris glanced at her and then down again.  
  


"What do you think they're doing?" Briar asked sleepily.  
  


"Who? You mean Sandry and Raeldro?" Tris asked, not looking up.  
  


"Of course!"   
  


"Probably being giggly all over each other," sighed Tris. She felt completely disgusted with both herself and them. She also wondered why Briar even cared; it was not like him to be concerned with the romantic interests of anyone. Briar grumbled something and rolled over to face Tris.

  
"You think he likes her?" Briar murmured.  
  


"I don't know for sure," confessed Tris, turning to face him. "But he acts like he does."  
  


"I think Kirel and Daja will get married," Briar offered.  
  


"Married?!" exclaimed Tris. "But, Briar, he only kissed her. That's no proof of love." 

  
"But you saw how he couldn't control himself," reasoned the young man. "That's real lover-like."

   
Tris shook her head. "You don't know anything, Briar. It's just instinctual because it's springtime. That's just lust. Since when do you think you know so much about love, anyway?"  
  


"I don't know much," he admitted. "But don't you think something might come of it?"  
  


"Yes," Tris said. "I wish them the best."   
  


Briar stretched. Tris watched his back muscles rippling under the shirt he wore. "I hope she enjoys herself tonight. Maybe once she has a little bit of time with Kirel, she'll be more at ease."  
  


"Hopefully," Tris added.   
  


Briar paused. Then he said slyly, "But I'm glad Frostpine will be there. From the looks of it, they'll need a supervisor."  
  


"A supervisor?" asked Tris.  
  


"Of course! If he wasn't afraid to kiss her in public, what do you think he'll do in private?" Tris paused momentarily, thinking about that. Her mouth dropped when she realized what he was saying. 

"Briar!" she shrieked. "Are you insinuating something?" She couldn't believe that Briar was making sexual innuendos. She ought to have expected him to do so; after all, he was an 18-year-old male, and the jokes came to him easily. Tris felt mildly uncomfortable. To hear Briar mention sex in such a casual manner both intrigued her and disgusted her. Somehow, she was more intrigued.

The initial thought resurfaced, and the latter faded. _How dare he make sexual innuendos!  
  
_

"I'm not going to say another word," he calmly replied. "Interpret it as you like."  
  


Tris shoved him. "I hate to quote you, but shouldn't we 'keep our nebs out of their business'?" she snapped. "You wouldn't like it if someone was nosing into your affairs!"   
  


Briar retorted. "No, I wouldn't, but I care enough to be a little nosy." With that he rolled away from her and closed his eyes, snoozing contently.   
  


Tris looked at him briefly and then diverted her eyes to the garden. She grabbed a fistful of the thatching angrily and threw it. _I don't like romance!_ she thought passionately to herself. _I hate it! It's too confusing, and it makes messes.   
_  
---  
  
An hour later, Tris was sitting in the kitchen, drinking some water and chatting with Daja. They heard light laughter outside. 

_Sandry!_ thought Daja, scurrying to the window with Tris right behind. A giggling Sandry pushed through the gate, Raeldro's one hand in her own. Tris noted right away that she and Raeldro were blowing kisses to each other and winking. _Oh dear! she thought as she sipped her drink calmly in a very Lark-like fashion. _

  
They touched lips briefly, to Daja and Tris's shock. Sandry went through the door into the room, smiling widely and glancing back at Raeldro. They were unable to take their eyes off of one another.  
  


"You have some explaining to do," Daja told Sandry as the latter wandered through the kitchen. Sandry smiled knowingly at her friends and took out a glass. 

"Now!" added Daja.

  
Sandry snickered and poured herself some water. "You were right, Daja," she giggled. Her voice was singing, and loudly, too. "Being kissed is nice." 

Someone thundered down the stairs. Briar appeared at the base of the stairs, looking confused. "What are you girls gabbing about? You woke me up all the way on the roof!"

Sandry smiled at him. "Raeldro is wonderful. That's all you need to know – and _you wouldn't understand, anyway."  
  
_

Briar, Daja, and Sandry watched her with unblinking eyes. Lady Sandrilene fa Toren was changed.   
  
---  
  
Dinner was quiet. Daja was gone for the night. Because her afternoon had been so exciting, Sandry had promptly fallen asleep after much coaxing from her companions.   
  


Briar and Tris were the only two of the four left to eat dinner with Rosie and Lark. Prayers were said, and the eating commenced. Niko joined them partway through supper. When he learned that Daja was away and that Sandry was also unavailable, he looked slightly worried.  
  


"What's wrong?" Lark asked him as she set her glass of milk down.  
  


"Oh, it's nothing," he assured her.   
  


"If you insist," she said, sticking a fork in her salad.   
  


Later, after Briar and Tris explained that something had gone on between Raeldro and Sandry, Niko's eyebrows creased together and he frowned. This time, Rosethorn was the one to demand a reason for his actions.  
  


"It's just that, well, is that really a good idea?"

"What do you mean?" asked Briar.   
  


"In the case that something bad happens, you four ought to be together," Niko responded simply. "Don't leave each other's company for too long."

  
"What's the sudden worry for?" asked Lark, laying a hand on Niko's arm.   
  


Niko shook his head. His eyes were reddened with stress. "I think it's obvious why I'm worried," he said quietly. "Can't I be worried that our earth is sickly?"

  
"I thought it was getting better," said Tris fearfully. "It looked better the last time we went."  
  


Niko flapped a hand at her lazily. "Oh, no," he assured her. "It's just general worry, that's all."  
  


"There's something more!" Rosie said, pressuring him. "You know something we don't know. I need to know what it is! I have a right to know what you're hiding, Niko." It was hard for Niko even to refuse Rosethorn's threatening voice.  
  


"Well," admitted Niko wearily, "Moonstream has found some very interesting information out."  
  


"Is that so?" Lark asked.

Niko nodded, and the others noted how hollow his eyes looked. "You have all heard of Stone Circle Temple in Capchen, yes?"  
  


Tris bristled. "That was where you found me," Tris said to Niko. "Those people said I was cursed."  
  


Niko nodded to acknowledge what she'd said. "Yes, well, one of the dedicates there, a woman named Dedicate Gazelle, disappeared for about four days. They found her again in the woods outside of the city. She was dead."  
  


"So, a dedicate died. What's so bad about that?" asked Briar.   
  


"This dedicate was murdered. She had been fighting someone; she was slashed and covered in blood," Niko told them. Briar gulped hard. The older mage went on, "Dedicate Gazelle was a jeweler. She always wore a fine opal set in gold around her neck. It was gone when they found her body."  
  


The dedicates gasped sharply. Niko nodded gravely.   
  


"I don't understand. Her body was robbed, but that happens to people who are murdered," Briar said.  
  


Tris said suddenly, "Opals store energy, power. The finest opals can store huge amounts of energy. Nobody knows how much power that they can actually store!" It was a lesson she had learned in her studies at Growing Circle. Turning to Niko, she said hurriedly, "Someone stole Dedicate Gazelle's opal with the intent of either selling it to someone or using it for themselves, using it to store huge amounts of energy. And there's certainly a certain someone who has been taking large amounts of power from the earth, large amounts that need to be put somewhere!"  
  


Niko nodded. "That's right," he said.  
  


"If this murderer could be traced, then maybe we could find who has been stealing the earth's power, right?" Briar asked.  
  


"Exactly. But that's the hard part, especially since the murderer left no traces of the deed. There is nothing on the body that belongs to a creature other than Dedicate Gazelle. This was clean," Niko told them.  
  


Briar swore under his breath. "If the person responsible went to the trouble of murdering a woman and stealing a fine opal from her in order to store power, then that person has got to be planning to steal more energy, a lot more energy!" exclaimed Briar worriedly.   
  


"That's why I'm worried," said Niko with a grim nod. "We don't know, but our doomsday might be coming more quickly than we expected, if the mage responsible is planning something big. Therefore, I ask that the four of you be in close contact. In the case that something bad does happen, you'll all be together and able to support each other. Understand?"  
  


"But Daja just went for a night," protested Lark. "And I think it won't for harm for Sandry to be with Raeldro Earthkin."   
  


Niko nodded. "Well, I can't help that. We just have to make the best of things," he said. "Things certainly do look grim," Lark mumbled, her eyes wet with wear. "I don't know how I'll be able to make good of what we've got, but I'll certainly try." The rest of the meal was quiet.   
  
  



	6. Chapter 5

After dinner was done and after everyone pitched in for clean-up, Kirel heated up some delicious tea for the three. They sat, sipping it around the fireplace. A warm flame danced around logs of wood, keeping the room warm. The night had fallen, and it was suddenly extremely chilly. The tantalizing phenomenon, the burning flame, tempted Daja to stare at it for long minutes. Kirel's profile was outlined against the golden light. 

Frostpine sat farther away from the fire. He looked eerie as the gleaming fire sent shadows across his face, shading his beard darkly and causing a gleam across his bare forehead. His eyes were light in his face, illuminated by the light source. His chair rocked as he kicked back and forth, swallowing his tea. 

Daja and Kirel sat together on a sort of chair seated for two, a bench made of stained light wood but with pillows stitched into the seat. Daja was to Kirel's right. She buried her nose in her cup, looking over the edge at Frostpine. His eyes were laughing merrily over his drink.

"What are you thinking?" asked Kirel suddenly. Daja grinned at Kirel, thinking how her mind echoed his own.

Frostpine swallowed quickly and set down his teacup on the tiny table between the two furniture items. "Oh, it's nothing really," insisted Frostpine, his face screaming to spill his secret. "I was thinking about you, that's all."

"About which of us?" asked Daja, peeking at her long-time master and friend.

"Both of you, together," Frostpine replied wickedly. "I saw the two of you earlier, today." 

Daja nearly choked on her drink. She gulped down the amount in her mouth and put her cup down. 

"Oh," was all that she managed to mutter once she was able to breathe again.

"'Oh'?" asked Frostpine, sounding hurt, though his dancing eyes betrayed the secret. He was actually quite amused. "Is that all? Aren't you going to tell me if there's something going on that I don't know about?"

It was one of the single times in her life that Daja felt awkward around Frostpine. Apparently, he had no idea how that kiss had been – brief, and unexpected, and disturbing, and lacking in reason. Daja didn't know where to look, how to hide; she saw Kirel's face, turned towards her, asking her the exact same question.

"How did you see us?" Kirel asked, breaking the long silence and tension. 

"Well, I was just walking along to the well for water for dinner, and I saw Kirel talking to yourself, your friends, and Lark. I was about to come up, say hello – and, well, Kirel, you just kissed her and—"

"Alright. I understand," Kirel interrupted.

It was at this point that Frostpine realized that perhaps he had embarrassed them. He saw Daja, unable to look at either Kirel or himself, and Kirel, looking at Daja with an unusual look. Frostpine could see the worry in his eyes. Quickly, he stood, leaving his tea to get cold, and left the room before they could even argue. 

Daja didn't know. She just didn't know anything – not what to do, not what to say, not even what she felt. All she knew was that Kirel had kissed her, again, and she had liked it, again. Would it be like before? Would nothing come of it? Did she want anything to come out of it? 

"Daja," said Kirel. She turned her head back to him, her eyes blank, barren. 

His eyes held the same coldness; the repression of emotion was due to want of acceptance, and fear of not getting that. His eyes, framed by the whiteness of his hair, looked like ice to her, untouchable. "I've missed you," he said suddenly. 

She felt as though something inside her had shifted against her ribcage, pressing, aching. 

"Is it – is it bad to want to show you that?" Kirel asked her quietly, and the humanity slipped back into his eyes. 

Daja felt herself soften; she had not realized that her entire body had been tense. _You've missed him, too, a part of Daja told herself. _Why must you resist that? Why don't you accept that he does mean something to you? Kirel is not a man of the past. He is here, a man of the present. The opportunity is still there; the relationship was never over. __

---

Meanwhile, at home, Sandry was waking up in her room after her nap. It was night, but the sun had just set and the stars were just beginning to twinkle in the sky. Sandry sat up in her bed, the light fabric of her dress pooling out around her like a lake made of ivory. She blinked her eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them. Standing up, she ran her fingers through free, loose hair. She made her way to her window, staring out through the sheer pane. 

She flung open the window on a whim, letting the chilled air whip through her hair. The ribbons on her sleeping gown tangled with the honey-colored strands of hair that danced with the breeze. She was freezing, but she felt so utterly _alive, as if she was breathing for the first time in a decade. She stuck her head out of the window, her bright eyes reflecting the celestial heavens' strange pattern._

Laughing, Sandry picked up a flower that she'd found earlier that day with Raeldro. It was lying on the table by her bed. Giggling, she plucked off all the half-dried pinkish petals and threw them to the wind, releasing them to whatever fortune lay before them. Sandry giddily watched them go away from her; the petals flew towards the Hub on wings of air. 

---

Across the city at the temple dormitories, a young mage was walking through the halls. At the end of the hallway, there was a huge bay window, lined with red curtains. He made his way to the window. He stood there for a moment, watching the giant yellowed moon, the color of faded paper. His hazel eyes grazed the whip-lashed trees. 

Something bumped into the window. Raeldro did not even jump as the thing contacted the glass. He saw that a few petals of a flower had collided with the window pane. Raeldro smiled lightly, as if he knew who had sent them to him. He opened the window very carefully. Nonetheless, they flew open beyond his control, crashing into the walls. Glass shattered as a multitude of leaves and petals streaked through the hall around Raeldro, who stood crucified at the window, black against the weathered moon. 

His ebony hair was plastered against his face as the harsh gale blew against him. The wind was calling his name, but the wind had Sandry's voice. It was a low sigh, so quiet even in chaos. The shards of the broken window panes streaked down the hall. The scene was dangerous and mystical and beautiful all at once. 

Raeldro smiled and called back her name on the wind. Everything settled to the ground as the wind changed direction. Raeldro turned away and closed the wrecked windows pointlessly. He knelt down to pick up a flower petal from the floor. 

---

"Close the window!" hissed Briar. Sandry shrieked and hopped back into the room, whirling on her friend. He thought she looked rather strange, wind-blown and lively, but she was so pale, like death had touched her. 

"You scared me," she said, closing the window very quietly. "I didn't hear you come in, with the wind roaring so much." She smiled and brushed her light hair behind her ear. Briar sighed and blinked his eyes at her.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I could feel the wind all the way in the hallway," he explained. "What do you think you're doing, anyway, flinging open the window and leaning halfway out of it?" 

"Casting petals to the wind," she said. "And making wishes on them." She held the drying stalk in her hands.

"Oh, Sandry," Briar said, rolling his eyes. "How about you make wishes in the morning, when the whole house doesn't have to freeze to death while you do it?" She shivered and nodded. Her sleeping gown was flimsy, and he could see her goose bumps rising on the surface of her skin. 

Briar added, "Maybe you ought to get some hot tea or something. There's some left from the meal."

Sandry shrugged and agreed to the offer. They wandered out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. 

"Is there any tea?" asked Sandry, taking a seat next to Tris, who was reading a book. Lark's eyes rose easily and weightlessly from her spindle to Sandry. She went around the kitchen, spooning in sugar and humming, while Briar stole looks at Tris's book. 

"Stop reading over my shoulder, thief-boy," Tris muttered, elbowing him in the side.

Lark brought the tea, set it in front of the young woman, who began to sip on it contentedly. As Lark did so, her hand brushed up against Sandry's arm. "You're freezing," Lark remarked, raising an eyebrow. She touched her hand more firmly to Sandry's arm, while her once-apprentice looked over the teacup innocently.

"I found her with her head out the window," Briar told her. Tris, at Lark's urging, hurried to the stocked attic to get a blanket, taking a candle to light her way.

"Am I really that bad?" asked Sandry, staring at her hands. "You don't think I'll get sick, do you?" Lark shook her head to show her disapproval, not to comment on her student's remark.

"Don't you have common sense?" Lark chided, giving her the cup of tea. Sandry sipped it down. 

"I'm sorry," she said, some of the color returning to her face. "The wind is wonderful, though, and the sky is just beautiful. All the stars were glimmering, as if they were excited."

There was a thudding noise in the attic. Briar and Sandry heard Tris exclaiming swear words rather loudly.

"Briar," said Lark downstairs, "I think Tris is having some trouble."

"My cue," Briar groaned, leaping up the stairs.

Sandry watched him go, his loose shirt flapping as he went. She turned back to Lark with moist eyes that sparkled. "She has become lost up there," she murmured. "The dark is ugly, sometimes." Sandry gazed gratefully at the crystal beacons that shone out of her light-stone. 

Lark gripped Sandry's hand briefly. "I know it is," she said softly. Lark smoothed a wrinkle on her habit. "I've overheard a few things in the last few hours," Lark said nonchalantly. Her eyes flickered up to Sandry's, who were lowered into the teacup. 

"What sort of things?" asked Sandry in a whisper, even though she knew the answer.

"Things ... about you," Lark said, fingering the handle on her teacup. "Things about you and a certain someone else. I don't think it's necessary to say his name." 

Sandry shook her head. "No, it's not," she replied, not taking her eyes off of her cup.

Lark pushed her tea away from her. "I need to know a few things, Sandry," she said firmly. 

Now Sandry lifted her eyes. She'd never heard Lark sound so determined over something that seemed so trivial. "What do you need to know?" she asked quietly. Her hair fell into her face, masking her one eye from Lark's view.

Lark smiled as if she were a sly panther. "Everything," she said.

Sandry threw back her hair and sighed. "It's a very long story," she began.

"I have time." 

Sandry smiled at Lark's undying persistence. "Well, I'm sure you know that Raeldro and I have been talking in the last few days. We've gone on walks," Sandry explained, gesturing with nimble hands. "We were walking earlier today. We went to this little spot, a little grove by a stream. It's a gorgeous place; I really ought to take you there some time." 

Lark nodded. "Go on."

"Well, he was telling me that he thought it was a beautiful day. And, I wondered what could make it more perfect. And then, well, he kissed me." Sandry blushed. "He kissed me a few times, Lark. I'd never been kissed before, not like that."

Lark leaned forward. "Not like what?" 

"Not so... so powerfully," Sandry sighed. "It was like something deep inside me woke up, like someone started to draw fire out of my gut. It was a wonderful, strong feeling." Her eyelashes fluttered closed. "It burns even still when I think about it." Her voice was the merest whisper, like the sound of trees conversing. 

"But do you love him, Sandry?" Lark asked. "Romance is one thing, while love is another completely."

Sandry thought of that kiss and the hotness that came with it, the joy of the quiet woods. But, words of Daja's rang in her head. Was it enough? Would their relationship expand beyond embraces in between the tree trunks while the Hub clock ticked? Right now, she thought of him and ached all over the surfaces; but when he passed the skin of her, what would happen? And what would happen once she sorted through his outside and delved in? "I… I don't know, Lark."    

Lark nodded and craned her neck to look better at Sandry. The young woman's eyes were stark with distress. Lark said with a laugh, "Come, Sandry. I don't mean to depress you and spoil your romance. I am not a guardian anymore, and I cannot tell you if you ought to be kissing young men in the grove. If you do not love him now, perhaps you will later. It is unrealistic of me to think you'll find the man of your dreams before you turn twenty." Sandry gave a small smile, somewhat comforted.

"Although," Lark added, "it would be wonderful if Raeldro Earthkin himself was the man of your dreams, hmm?" She winked and nudged a laughing Sandry, and all chaos settled into monotony and normality.

---

Meanwhile, Briar entered the attic upstairs. He snuck into the room, seeing crates piled up to his head in a strange winding path. When he had organized up there earlier, had he made the rows in a pattern? If so, that would have made everything easier. The room was somewhat large, the size of the kitchen and sitting room that it hovered over, but the higher ceiling was what made it intimidating. 

Briar saw a glimmer from the far corner. "Tris!" he called. 

Tris yelped at his voice.  The glimmer faded to black, and nothingness filled the room. "You made me drop my candle!" she hissed at him from somewhere in the darkness.

"You'll live," Briar remarked. "I came up because you were taking a while, Coppercurls."

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I don't know which crate has the blankets in it." 

"Where are you?" he asked. He heard a great deal of shuffling and some bumping into boxes, along with a few flavorful swear words that he had never taught her. 

"I'm here," she said. Her voice sounded even farther away than before. 

Briar edged around a box corner, following the sound of her speaking. "Just stay where you are, okay? Can you at least make it that much easier for me?" he joked. 

"Stop it," Tris growled. "You'll kill the remainder of my pride."

"I'm sorry," he said, listening closely. "It's very... eerie up here." He paused. "Hum for me, or make some sort of noise, so I can follow the sound of it." 

"I can't believe you didn't bring a candle yourself, genius," Tris said scornfully. She made an out-of-tune humming noise.

"You had one before!" Briar protested. 

Tris was about to stop her humming to make a cruel comment back. She flinched when his hands touched upon her face, brushing her nose and lips. His index finger could feel the moistness on the inside of her lip where her mouth was parted in mid-hum.

"Found me," Tris whispered. For a moment, his hands hesitated, liking the way that her lips touched his fingertips as she spoke. Then he drew them back, taking her hand instead. "Let's just get this done and over with," he remarked, glad that she could not see the hot blush on his face.

"Should we go and get a light?" Tris asked. 

"There's no need. The blankets should be around here somewhere," said Briar quietly. He let go of Tris and reached into a crate to his left. "Spider!" he yelled suddenly, flinging something at her. She gasped, annoyed and surprised, and brushed it off her. It fell to the ground, lifeless. It was a small coil of yarn. 

"Was that supposed to be funny?" Tris shot at him. He was chuckling.

Briar pulled a fuzzy white blanket out of the box. "It's easy to tease you," he said with a smile, winking at her. He tossed the blanket at her head. It unfurled, falling over her shoulders. Briar started to walk down the darkened aisle from where they came.

Tris's stomach danced around, and she lifted the blanket from her eyes. _I don't know what it is about him that I like_, she said, angry at his silly, childish prank. _But I like something about that boy. _

Briar leaned on the edge of a crate, staring into the dark crosses on his hands. "Don't you want to get back downstairs? C'mon now." He walked ahead of her, this feet padding on the floor in a fair whisper. 

"Wait here. I'm going to grab another one, just in case, so we don't have to come up to this cursed place again," Tris commented. She set down the white blanket on the floor by Briar's feet. Warily, she stumbled through the boxes and crates and found the one with the blankets. Finding a dark green one, she wrapped it over her shoulders and turned around. It was very dark. She could see nothing but her own hands, white against the darkness. Her hands touched something solid and sturdy.  

"I thought I had run into a brick wall," she said, and Briar laughed softly. His chest quivered underneath her hands. 

"Carrying my _shakkan_ around has given me muscles like rocks," Briar responded.

Tris wondered at this prospect; he was not lying about the strength of his body. She could feel that his body had changed in three years. "Oh, really?" Tris responded sarcastically. 

"Oh, yes," Briar replied. _Is he flirting? _she asked herself. "I think you'd be able to tell," he remarked, jokingly. Suddenly she felt the closeness between her and Briar for the first time. 

_Oh my,_ thought Tris as she realized the situation she was in. Slowly, she stopped laughing. Briar was silent as well. Both sets of eyes were diverted to Tris's hands planted firmly on his chest. Her fingers and the backs of her hands shone out against the dark green of his shirt, which blended into the black of the room. Her eyes somehow raised to meet his own, both of them questioning the moment. Shyly, Tris looked down.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, taking her hands off of him and stepping back, the blanket falling from her shoulders.     

Briar felt cold as she backed up from him. He wasn't sure if the cold was inside or out, but it certainly did sting to have Tris look at him as if she were afraid. _What did I do now?_ he asked himself, running his hand through his mussed hair. He breathed out, simply hoping maybe he wasn't being the antagonist. There were enough messes already; he didn't need another. Shuddering a little, he nodded to her. 

Tris offered Briar the white blanket. When he turned down her offer, she wrapped the second blanket around herself as well and followed him with a nod to the back of his head. They went back in silence, somehow finding the route through the maze of boxes. 

When they headed down the stairway, Lark looked up to see their tired eyes searching for Sandry. The light-haired noble gazed back at them, her face notably colored. Briar sighed his relief and went to get himself some tea. 

Tris stood behind Sandry and wrapped one blanket around her friend, her eyes gentle. "Cold still?"

Gratefully, Sandry turned her eyes on her redheaded friend. "I'm better now, thank you," she whispered. "And I'm very sorry about all of this. I should have known better, but I suppose I wasn't thinking straight."         

"We are humans, not gods," admitted Lark thoughtlessly, stirring her own tea. "It's no trouble." She smiled at Briar, Sandry, and Tris. "You aren't the same without Daja," she said with a blink. "It's almost like you're all incomplete without just one of you."

Briar diverted his eyes to his tea. "She needs this time with Frostpine and Kirel," he said intelligently, picking up his cup. He brought it to his lips, watching Lark's sad and misty eyes. "Besides, she's probably sick of us."

Even Lark had to chuckle at him. "She hasn't seen them in a while, so I suppose you're right. But you all heard what Niko said earlier today. The thought unsettles me as much as it unsettles you, you know," she remarked.        

"Certainly is unsettling," muttered Tris. Somehow, Sandry thought she was right. 

"I wonder what they're doing now," Sandry asked herself aloud. Tris's eyes snapped to Briar's. 

Personally, I have _no_ desire to know, Briar told his curly-haired friend. 

---

Briar was half-right, and yet he wasn't even understanding that Kirel and Daja's moment at the cottage was very different from simple physical touches. Something deep was brewing as Kirel and Daja lay sleepily in front of a smoldering pile of logs in the fireplace, hands caressing one another. Each touch between fingertips and cheekbones was like gods touching men. This desire for knowledge of one another fully was unbearable pressure, coming in by way of a fiery unseen blaze but washing them over like a tingle, an itch and a passion that was drawing them together like magnets. Oh, how they wanted more of each other.

Their dark outlined forms came together in a sweet kiss before one body leaned back, pulling the other down with him or her. Who was who did not matter anymore; now they were one being, one blessed being silkily pushing through the air in a smooth movement that could never be replicated. Something was heating, and it was not the metals under an anvil or their body heat. Yes, this blazing hot fire was more emotional, more spiritual, and overall, more important than any of the others. This fresh love, this new love that knew nothing, could conquer all else; this newborn emotion wanted to explore and know and experience slowly and carefully without missing a heartbeat or a breath. 

Like yin and yang, two different people of two different worlds, two different religions, two different races, two genders and two personalities, began to melt into a solid and unbreakable whole, a whole being that would triumph over the errs of mankind together. Hair fell over shoulders. Skin pressed against forms hidden by cloth. Eyes met and lips clashed in a beautiful love tango. Words unspoken curled through warm, fire-heated air, floating and seeping into living, sensitive skin. In this endless, timeless, flawless night, love came to stay and to change the face of their worlds. 

---

Early the next morning, so early that the sun had barely woken up itself, a wide-eyed and lively Daja burst through the door while the rest were still eating their breakfast. "Good morning," she said to the three exhausted young people at the table. They looked at her with glassy, tired eyes as if she had grown a second head. Daja casually tossed her maroon sack on the bench and sat on the stool at the end of the table. She leaned forward, resting her elbows.

"How was your visit?" asked Sandry sleepily, buttering a piece of warm, toasted bread. 

"I had a good time," replied Daja smoothly yet curtly. "Kirel and Frostpine give their greetings." Her voice conveyed no inner, hidden meaning; none of the three could guess anything about her experience. In fact, it was almost as if she refrained purposefully from sharing anything; did she have a secret? Or was she just private about her affairs? 

"That's nice," commented Tris, setting down a half-full glass of milk. "Did you eat breakfast?" She held out a slice of bread, her eyes questioning about more than one thing. Daja's feathery lashes lowered to the bread; she then gazed into Tris's eyes, either ignoring her suggestive looks or not noticing.

"Oh, I ate, but thank you," Daja said, flapping a careless hand at Tris. The redhead smiled awkwardly, as if she didn't know how to take the rejection. She set the bread back on the plate, only for it to be quickly taken up by a hungry Briar Moss. 

Silence hung strangely in the air, as if no one had anything to say. However, all of the four had many things to say. No one could bring up their probing questions against Daja; Daja, on the other hand, was unable to ask how her friends had spent their night, fearful they might bombard her furiously and relentlessly with embarrassing, personal questions that she didn't want to answer, questions she didn't think she could answer if she tried. Daja bit her lip nervously, chewing at it until it grew reddish with agitation.   

Sandry's eyes fluttered over to Daja's. The brown girl looked down at her lap, twiddling her thumbs. "I think I should go and unpack," she said in a nearly inaudible voice. Sandry nodded dumbly and began to slowly trace the edge of her glass with a slender finger to amuse herself. The taller girl rose from the stool, picked her bag up, and crossed the room.

Daja was almost to the stairs when she stopped and turned around to face them, as if she had just remembered something very important that she needed to say. She looked half-distant. Sandry twisted on the bench to glance back at her friend, watching them with such kind and warm eyes. Tris glanced down at Sandry's hand on her glass; Sandry's finger was caught on the rim, tipping the nearly empty glass. Tris laid a hand on the drink and set it back correctly. 

"Can we talk?" asked Daja in a very quiet voice. Sandry's head shot up straight, her hair flopping like a delicate milkweed. She looked Daja dead in the eye, as if she couldn't believe her friend's openness. 

Daja wandered over back to the stool, dropping her bag in its former place. "What did you do while you were there?" Sandry asked smartly, twisted a strand of hair and putting it behind her ear. 

"Oh, we talked a great deal. We chatted about the planet, about Raeldro and his experiment, about how good it is to be back where we started off. You know, returning to someplace I know makes this trouble less alarming. It's like ... it's like I'm home, even if that's all I've got," she said in a very quiet voice.

"I think we all know that feeling, Daja," said Lark upon entering. Daja smiled and waved as the dark-skinned dedicate walked past them with a flapping of her gown. "I'll leave you all to your peace. I'm too old to be in the room right now."

"Nonsense," insisted Sandry passionately. "We'd never exclude you!"

"And you're not old, not _that_ old anyway," Briar replied with a wink.

Lark made a crooked, wicked face at him. "That's a sure-fire way to win a lady's heart," Lark commented dryly, narrowing her eyes at him while smiling at the world openly.

"I don't plan on winning any lady's heart, not anytime soon," Briar responded tartly, snatching up another slice of the tasty bread. 

His eyes glinted, as if maybe Lark had struck some tightly wound coil in his heart, some sensitive spot in the hard-shelled soul of Briar Moss.

Tris felt a jolt run through her taut veins; it felt like strumming a guitar. She looked away from his green eyes, the color of light shining through tree leaves at sunset. _Why does that sting so badly?_ she asked herself. 

Lark shook her head. "You'll change your mind about love," they heard her mutter as she walked past towards the door. She cast a wink at Sandry. "No, honestly, I won't be staying," Lark announced aloud. "I've got to leave anyways. Niko is going to update me on Gazelle's story."

"Oh! Have you heard?" asked Sandry in a very gossipy manner, looking straight into Daja's eyes. 

"Frostpine told us this morning," replied Daja grimly. Daja turned worried eyes on Sandry, then on Briar and Tris. "I hope this will lead to the end of this mess." 

"It has to," Sandry said passionately. "This is a solid lead."

"A solid lead without any evidence to lead us to the killer," Tris remarked. "_Very_ solid, indeed."

"Have a handful of faith," Sandry replied. "Do you think that the gods are on the side of this madman?"

"No," grumbled Tris. "I don't. But explain this to me. Why did the gods cast their blind sides onto us and let this happen in the first place? Why would they make it simple to live?" She angrily shoved her glasses onto her nose a bit further.

The others glanced at her, feeling very small and insignificant after her statement. Her eyes glittered maliciously under her spectacles. "It's true," she hissed. "Hasn't existence wrung all the life out of us already? Hasn't it worn us thin with trouble, with worry, with sorrow and pain? Thinking about it makes you want to ... to stop living for a while until the storm passes by." 

The other shuddered at her words. "She's got a point," Briar admitted with a glance at the depressed girl across from him at the table. 

"No, she does not!" exclaimed Sandry passionately. "The gods have made obstacles for us; this is true. And some of us have had a great deal more trouble than others. But haven't they given us so much? We have the ability to live and exist in the first place. We have our planet, our magics. The gods have given us friendship and each other. They've given us love." Her hair fell into her face, spinning wildly around her head as she turned from person to person. 

"They've given _some_ of us love," remarked Tris fiercely. She picked up her drink and sipped from it as carefully as she could; her hands were shaky.

"Are you alright?" Sandry asked, leaning across the table to place a cool hand on Tris's cheek. The redhead flinched a little at the touch, but she then looked gratefully at Sandry's comforting eyes. 

"I think I'm alright," said Tris in a genuinely thankful manner. "I just get myself wound up sometimes."

Sandry smiled and removed her hand. "I think it's because you're just tired and worn out; aren't we all?" She laughed. She reseated herself, being careful not to knock over any milk glasses or get her sleeves in the butter. 

You'll get somebody one of these days, if _that's_ what you're mad about, Sandry told Tris quietly in her head. Tris's eyes flashed underneath her spectacles and she looked Sandry in the eyes, hope shimmering there.

I hope you're right, Tris thought to her friend. But I hope that one of those days is soon, because I'm worried that we don't have that many days left.

---

"News on Gazelle?" asked the four an hour later when Lark and Niko arrived back at the house. They could tell by the bleariness of Niko's eyes and the watermarks dashing Lark's cheeks that their answer was not a good one.

"Her body was scoured by the best of the best forensic mages. She's absolutely the cleanest of all murders. There's not a trace of anything foreign on her," Niko replied glumly, saddened by the lack of progress.

"Damn," muttered Briar. "I've never heard of such a case, and I've heard of lots of killings." He shut his eyes in disbelief, anxiously raking his fingers through his dark, shining hair in a cat-like motion. 

"It's amazing, isn't it? We are dealing with someone wealthy enough to pay for such an excellent, perfect murder, unless the person killed Gazelle himself. Either way, this person is very, very dangerous," Lark muttered. 

Niko rubbed his forehead. "We don't have any evidence," he concluded sorrowfully, his deep eyes lowering to his white-knuckled hands. Daja looked worriedly at his strained expression, wishing she could just throw this burden out the window. 

"Well, is there a way to track the opal, maybe?" Tris suggested. "You say that all things have a specific color, a specific place in the earth core. Could this opal be tracked using that?"

Niko shook his head. "Tracking as such is not easy. It is a process that has not been done in thousands of years, and even then it took twenty mages of the highest caliber to do so. Still, anyone who had purchased an opal from Dedicated Gazelle is asked to return it," he explained.  

"On such a happy note, should we start the activity?" Rosethorn interrupted quietly as she came from her room. Sarcasm dripped like snake's venom from the fangs of her lips. The four nodded, lost in the hells of their own minds, twisting evil, purple-black deaths for themselves. The rest of the morning was very, very grim. They warded the house and then proceeded to dig into the earth.

---

It was just after the midday meal. Tris was sitting on her bed, trying to amuse herself by reading a book. However, it was difficult to read with that deep, wet shadow sliding up and around her brain, squeezing tight and holding on. 

She dropped her book with a sob and worriedly shook her head, causing her glasses to clatter to the floor; luckily they stayed in 

one piece. "Damn," she hissed under her breath. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" 

Savagely she smashed her worn hands into the pillow. _It's not fair!_ she screamed in her mind_. I don't want to die! I don't deserve__ to die! Won't some god have pity on me, please, just let me stay a decade more? It's all I ask! That same trickle of ominous doom tingled up her spine, as if it answered her with a menacing, demon-like laugh. _

She leaned back and hugged herself, rocking back and forth. F_or all my life before I came here, I just wanted to die. In the minds of my peers, wasn't I already dead? I was this bug they could squash, a heartless toy, an inanimate puppet. But ever since I met Niko, all I've wanted is to live._ I suppose that I should have been careful about what I prayed for.__

Her mind revolted powerfully. _But, no! My friends never asked for death's hand upon them_, she reasoned. She laid down softly. _And yet..._ I may have wanted to die, but no god granted that favor to me, thankfully. And that was the only thing I wished for, anyway. I never asked for much. Would it be so wrong to ask for a little help in this crisis, just a little helping hand? Could it be so bad to just ask the gods to keep me from _not __dying? They've done it before, despite my protests, and I'm sure that they can do it again, she pondered. Pitifully, she let out a moan of distress, unheard by anyone but the breeze that sauntered through her home._

_What do I have to hold on to?_ she asked no one, yet still begging for an answer. _Is there something left? Someone left?_

Visions of Sandry, giggling as she wandered back from a walk with Raeldro, swept through her mind. She saw Sandry from years ago, her hair in those pigtails, frustrated with threads clinging to her clothes, tears beading in her eyes. She heard Sandry's words in her mind; Tris felt her fingers trace that masterpiece of Sandry's, the lumpy eternal circle of them. Sandry was a masterpiece in herself, the Bag who stood up for Traders and closed the gate on Dedicate Crane's face. 

The memory of Niko's face, shocked and curious as he exited the Dedicate Superior's office, appeared; that was when she had first seen him. She saw him angry at her when she had tried to control the tides; she saw him afraid when he had walked into Discipline earlier. But she saw that the hole her own father had made was filled by the whole of Niko. She saw him smiling proudly as they left Discipline three years ago, and she could hear in his voice the hidden tears that dwelt behind his eyelids.

Rosethorn, covered in soot with leaves twined through her fingers, rose up in the frame of her past. Tris heard her threatening words, promising to hang them in the well. She saw Rosethorn's glower at the back of Crane's head. She felt the thanks when life ebbed back into Rosethorn's body after the four had rescued her from death's garden.

Tris smelled Lark's tea and watched her show them acrobatics across the planes of her mind's eye. Lark had fostered the chick in Tris and had released the eagle. A memory of Lark, spinning at the table a few nights prior, murmuring sweet, soft love songs, turned her eyes briefly up at Tris, comforting Tris like her true mother never did. 

Frostpine and Daja hammered nails lovingly in the wood framework of a door. Daja's staff hitting the ground was a familiar sound to her ears; perhaps it was actually a noise downstairs. Daja was like a boy with her calloused ship hands and alien ways. But Tris saw pieces of herself in Daja, parts that knew what it was like to be alone, parts that recognized what was gruff in her. Tris saw Daja throw away all her preconceived notions of merchant girls.

Briar flipped through a book in her mind's eye, able to read thanks to Tris's dedication. She remembered teaching him to dust, recalled how frightened he had been of Rosethorn. She remembered his dislike of bathing. But she saw Briar soften at the edges like watercolor paints. She saw him go tender at the smiles of his female friends and saw him stick up for them while they defended Little Bear. 

_Isn't that enough?_ she asked herself. A little gremlin tinkered with her wants, rooted deep in the cavernous pits of her mind.

An imaginative thought popped into her brain. Briar looked tenderly at her, drawing near enough to touch her cheek with a sweet kiss. Tris's mind jolted tenfold at the sight. As much as she thought it to be odd, new, didn't she see it as something she desired? 

_I've asked myself this a million times, and I never can answer_, she thought sadly.

The idea of Sandry loving someone else, somebody foreign, was weird. The notion that Daja was perhaps in love with Kirel was also unfamiliar. But the idea of Tris loving Briar? That was the strangest, most insane thing to imagine. _...The image has already sunk within me. Won't it remain?_

_He is already my friend,_ Tris reminded herself. _Why can't he be more than that?     _

Something evil in her mind hissed that he was her friend and nothing more. She had asked so much of him already. Hadn't he already helped her in a crisis, given her his shoulder to cry on, and gotten her to learn outside of her world? To ask Briar to love her would be pushing the limits. 

The smallness slithered away into the recesses of night. _We know no limits._

A knocking noise arose from the door. Jumping a little, Tris turned her stormy blue-gray eyes towards the entrance to her room. Clumsily, with hands that had grown but still seemed childlike, she picked her glasses up and shoved them on her nose savagely as she stumbled to the door and opened it, trying to regain that normal, cold composure.

Coincidentally, Briar was standing there. "The rest of us are downstairs, but we felt you crying. Are you alright?" he whispered quietly to her. His face leaned towards her own in a worried, sympathetic way. Tris was tempted to lean forward and gratefully peck his cheek, but she didn't dare.

Feigning that independent, powerful exterior, Tris backed up a step and made her way to the bed again, her back away from his. 

"I'm fine," she told him loudly enough for him to hear, but quietly enough so that he couldn't pull any emotion from her voice. She crawled onto the mattress. He stepped into the room, nudging the door with the tip of his shoe. However, he was unable to walk any closer to her. 

"You sure?" he asked her in a kind and gentle voice. Tris liked the way he talked when he was trying to be nice, as if he held a subtle hum behind his words. But she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"I'm alright, really," she insisted. She picked her book up casually, leafing through the pages as if she were bored. "I just ... need some time alone, to think." Her eyes rose to his own. She saw isolation rooted in his eyes. _You don't understand,_ she thought, though not to him. _You don't understand that half of the problem is __you, and you can't solve it, not this time. _

"If you need to talk ... we're here," he offered simply enough. Something kindred shone in his eyes, something that seemed to stretch out in a kind gesture.  

Tris blinked at him. "I know that, thank you," she said with a slight cough stuck in her throat. Briar looked at her with a strange unfamiliarity in his eyes, as if he couldn't understand her resistance to assistance. And, indeed, he didn't understand. _Why _

_is__ she always so distant? he asked himself. Even her eyes had that watery, alien blue drifting in them, a swirl of a sky and an unseen world.  A stretched, tense feeling hung between them for an instant, making them each want to run away forever. _

He frowned at her regretfully, resentful that he was still unable to get through to her after all these years. "Alright then, Coppercurls," Briar said affectionately and somewhat teasingly as he turned towards the door, masking his distress. "Just remember what I said." Mournfully, his hand touched the doorknob, turning it halfway in a manner that suggested a hesitation in leaving at that critical moment.

Briar was almost out the door when Tris called him back. "Wait," she squeaked, setting her book down. He turned back to her with a very visible question in his eyes. Tris shyly lowered her eyes. Suddenly, she was afraid to ask him something, anything. 

Briar somehow was able to figure out the problem lurking in the dark of Tris's brain. "We're _all afraid, if that's what you're wondering," he replied to her unspoken words. "Including me." His voice was soft and almost quivering, as if that fear had taken root years ago and was already starting its ugly decay cycle._

Her eyes fluttered up, glimmering beneath the glass of her spectacles. "I'd thought so. Maybe I'd even hoped that I wasn't the only one, as horrible as that sounds," she whispered. 

He shook his head at her. "There's nothing wrong with being scared," Briar commented. "We've got reason to be." He laughed. When Tris cast him a sideways glance, he explained, "We're on the loose again. Who knows what messes we might make this time." 

Tris chuckled. _Niko can't fix up our problems anymore,_ she thought to herself. _And that means we can't make them anymore, especially now._ That's _going to be a challenge._

Briar grinned at her. "Cheer up, okay? We'll make it," he assured her. With a wink, he headed out of the door, leaving that warm Briar-ish scent behind him, a fresh, lingering aura that was so entirely human with that magical green glint that was his essence. 

Tris sighed in his identity and hoped that he was right this once. Flipping curls the color of bronze behind her ears, she reopened her storybook mindlessly.

Briar headed down the stairs, thinking of Tris. Even now, she couldn't speak her mind to him. Running his hand through his hair vainly, he tried to block out the wary tremble he saw in Sandry's and Daja's eyes. 

"Is she alright?" Sandry asked in a strained whisper, trying to keep Tris from overhearing.

Briar nodded and reseated himself at the bench next to Daja. "She'll be fine. And she's in that 'I-want-to-be-alone' mood, anyways, so don't even try it," he told them. He folded his arms and laid his head on them, gazing at the ceiling in the general direction of her room with puppy-dog eyes. 

Daja tugged his sleeve. "Street-boy," she murmured playfully, "you seem upset."

"Some things we'll never reach," he answered her, not looking at her. "Some _people_ we'll never really reach, not all the way. We'll always be a step behind, a moment late, and at the wrong place at the wrong time."   

"Don't talk so, 'kid,'" Daja remarked, elbowing him. "We were able to get you to stop talking slang constantly. I think we can do anything." 

---

The afternoon crawled by slowly and painfully; Briar had decided against sleeping in order to help Rosethorn restock her workroom. He strained herbs and sifted sands and poured sweet-smelling mixtures into puddle-like globs on a dish, his mind concentrated on the task at hand. It did him good to not think for a while. Rosethorn watched him work with a critical eye. 

Daja, hoping to clear her mind as well, went for a walk. She watched the sky, dotted with light gray clouds in patches that covered that familiar crystal blueness. She went to Frostpine and Kirel's shop; they weren't there. Perhaps there was a meeting at the Fire Temple or at the Hub. She wandered through their house aimlessly for fifteen minutes, gazing at the fireplace, smeared with charcoal, or leafing through a stack of books on the table.

Sandry sat spinning thread to pass the time at the kitchen table. Around and around went the spindle, the same one she'd purchased 8 years ago at the Summersea market. She also pulled their thread circle out from the pouch around her neck, the same pouch that held her still blazing light crystal. She held it in her hand, fingering each knot and feeling the shock and tremor of each person as she touched them. The thread was old-looking, worn from age, yet it was still as whole as if had been years ago when it had first been formed in a loop. 

Tris, upstairs, read her book, and then continued to read it over and over again until she fell asleep.

---

The foursome sat on the roof of the cottage, watching the sky turn black later that day. The sun was just setting, but the mask of clouds, slightly tinted red, hid the glorious sunset. Tris especially was fond of watching the heavens. There was hardly anything she liked to do more than gaze as clouds formed and grew and then split into many. The sky today was spotted with rain clouds, which threatened to soak them at any moment in a cool kiss of rain. Tris could hardly wait. 

Sandry was working at braiding her hair. She was trying to make two braids on each side like pigtails. It was a hairstyle she had worn often as a child but less as a near-adult, for it made her look many years younger - too young for her taste. However, she loved the convenience of being able to keep it out of her face when she was working at anything. Smiling brilliantly, she worked at her task.

Briar had recently purchased new shoes. His old one had been leather thong sandals, which had been comfortable but trashy in appearance. At Rosethorn's command to "buy something decent" for his feet, Briar had bought a pair of nearly identical shoes, but they were stiffer and they made his poor feet ache with small sores. Now, as the teenagers lazed about on the roof, Briar slipped the new shoes off his feet and held them in his hands, twisting them this way and that in an attempt to break them in. His arms rippled as he bent the stubborn sole back and forth, loosening the leather. His work was tedious, but it would be worth it when he was finished.     

Daja was snoozing. After staying up late the previous night and waking early that morning, she was worn thin. She slept away on the roof, dreaming about constructing doors for the umpteenth time. It was a tiring vision. And, yet, despite her sleepiness, her body itself wasn't tired at all. In fact, she'd never felt so awake. Her lips still burned where Kirel had kissed her; her hands desired the feel of his cool, pale skin underneath them. Sandry was watching her, sneaking secretive glances at the lazy girl. She could see that Daja had a weird magic boiling inside her, something passionate. Somehow, Sandry could guess who Daja was thinking of. 

A terse voice from inside the house called to the four on the roof.  Briar looked up slowly from the shoe, as if he feared what wrath might soon fall upon him; Daja grumbled and sat up as groggily as a hibernating bear would, eyelids fluttering. Sandry, her bright eyes shining, stopped braiding but held the braid in its place in mid-braid; Tris rolled over and called back to the voice, "We're on the roof."

Rosethorn yelled up the stairwell, "I figured you were hiding. I'm reminding you that it's dinnertime, meaning that Daja has to come down to help Lark cook and Sandry has to set the table and afterwards wash dishes." Daja groaned simultaneously with Sandry, and the latter quickly finished her hair and secured it with a red ribbon. Daja and Sandry raced down the stairs to the kitchen, leaving Tris and Briar alone.

After watching the girls leave, Briar continued his work, leaving Tris to watch the swirling heavens above her. She glanced 

at him. He looked adorable, brows knit together as he concentrated intently on his shoe. She then turned her attention back to the sky, observing the misty green-gray fade into night.

Only a few minutes passed before Briar slipped on his shoes again. "Much better. They aren't as hard anymore," he said. He scooted over next to Tris and lay next to her, saying, "I'll watch clouds with you, for old times' sake." Tris turned to her left to where he lay, and she smiled faintly at him. He grinned back, white teeth shining against his bronze skin. Tris thought Briar's smile to be a nice one, gleaming and seeming to light up the scene in a silver-green sheen. Was it her, or had he always glowed like that?

They both stared at the sky for long moments, their gazes lost in the heavens. "It's getting dark," Briar remarked. "Maybe we should go in so we don't get rained on." He was right; stormy clouds the color of a raging, bitter sea streaked against the backdrop of the skies. 

"Nonsense," said Tris, glancing to her left. "The rain hasn't come yet. And even when it does, it's peaceful to be in, listening to the sound of it and smelling the fresh-earth scent." She sat up in anticipation, restless for the storm. She could almost feel the lightning dancing in her blood, that electric shiver racing around her body in a flash. "Are you afraid of a little rain?" she teased, sitting up. 

Briar leaned up on his elbows. "Of course not," Briar said. "Why do you ask, weather-witch? Do you have some plan to drown me in a tidal flood?" 

"I would never, Briar. Smothering you with a pillow would be much easier," Tris said. 

"You wouldn't dare. How could you smother a face like this?" he asked, leaning in close to her. Was that a smirk she saw turning up at the corners of his lips? Something told her that he was very definitely flirting with her. He was certainly very close. 

"How could you take a pillow and smother these eyes and this smile?" With that, he flashed a charming, impish grin at her. Tris couldn't help but to blush and smile at him and at the irony of it all; it did not help her situation for him to point out all of his own beautiful traits. 

"Oh, I couldn't, Briar," Tris replied, surrendering to laughter. 

"Good," Briar said. He was still quite near to her, with those green eyes that he had mentioned staring into hers. Contented, Briar leaned back again. "This roof isn't as comfortable as it used to be. It sags like a mattress," he remarked. 

"That's why we need to re-thatch it," Tris said. "Or maybe it's just because you're three feet taller and weigh more." The winds teased at her curls and kerchief. 

"I did not grow three feet… one foot, at most," Briar responded, his eyes dragging on the skyline. "Maybe it's just that my shoulders are sore from leaning over Rosethorn's little workshop table. I should have brought a cushion."

_He could lean on you, _something inside of her remarked. 

_Don't let him, _a different part of her cried out.

But, for once, Tris decided to push all those small voices away and lock them in the deepest corner of her mind. After all, they were only voices, and they could not force her to do a single thing without her consent. 

He heard her shift, and he turned an eye towards her. She was crawling towards you. "I haven't come to smother you, I promise," she said casually. "C'mon. Lift your head. You can rest it on my lap." 

"Oh… really, I'll be fine," Briar protested, making to sit up to prove his well-being. 

"I won't tell anyone you've gone soft. Just relax, would you?" Tris said. She slid herself underneath him a bit, letting his head fall against her stomach. He found himself to immediately be much warmer now from her body heat. Yet, something was stiff. There was no release here. Their bodies still were far enough apart to be awkward, as if each feared catching some unnamed disease from the other. She didn't know where her hands ought to go.

She leaned over a bit. "I'm not quite a cushion, but hopefully you're comfortable." A hiss similar to a shiver sizzled down his neck where her breath touched him. The situation was getting more and more interesting as it moseyed along.

"I am," Briar said in more of a gasp than a phrase.

Tris paused, not sure what she ought to do now. She feared that if she so much as moved, Briar might jump up and bolt down the stairs and not look at her all through dinner. The thought wasn't appealing. But yet, something inside her, some ancient intuition, told her that it was alright. 

She took her arms and ran them over Briar's stomach, the pads of her fingers sensing carefully built muscles and sinew underneath his clothes. When she touched him, she could feel him inhale sharply, his chest rising quickly and abruptly at the sensation. When her palms too contacted his shirt and the layers beneath, Briar felt something stir within him, some sort of awakening. Why did that touch feel so alive? Why did he feel like his bones had all melted to butter under his skin? She then pulled him up and back to lean against her more and press his weight onto her. 

The feel of her body on his back was sensual and beautiful; he suddenly fell in love with the sweet embrace. Briar smiled and closed his eyes and leaned his head on her shoulder, his face to the impending storm. She could feel his chest rising and falling as he breathed; his breath smelled like something was blooming. He liked sitting on Tris's lap and aimed to tell her so. 

The strange gut feeling he felt was almost the same feeling he'd felt when he's stepped back into Discipline a few weeks ago for the first time in years, except that the feeling was fuller, like the emotion had a life of its own. Briar felt much warmer now, not only on the outside but on the inside as well. He made a contented sighing noise. 

Tris chuckled. "Glad I could help," she said in the barest of whispers. Her lips were so close to his face that the temptation to kiss him was overwhelming. His slightly parted lips were tantalizingly addictive, sweet pink rose petals that exhaled her breath of life.

They sat like that for a few more minutes, Briar nearly sleeping on Tris's lap and Tris holding him tightly. Tris was exhilarated that Briar had not only refrained from running from her after her request, but that he had actually consented and was now totally relaxed in her grasp. He felt to her like a weak kitten, needing to be tended to. Tris smiled. There were a hundred things rolling through her heart and mind, but the most prominent was currently that she ought to do this to Briar more often. All of her burned in a way that was all passion and no pain; life itself swam through her very veins.

Briar was half-dreaming. **Tris was in his dream, and she was humming to herself. It was a sweet, haunting melody. Was it the same song she had hummed in the attic**? Then he realized she actually was humming, right by his ear. He never had heard her sing, but he enjoyed the sound of her voice, rich and sweet.

But his dream did not stop there. **Dream-Tris was then taking his hands in hers, looking at them and fingering the briar-scars. Her fingers lightly flitted over deep dents and ridges, tracing the lines that represented his past, present, and future**. Then he figured out that she really was doing just that. 

**Dream-Tris stopped humming and said in a low voice, "You're beautiful, Briar Moss."** Well, at least he thought that the speaker was Dream-Tris. She sounded so real.

**"Dinner!" cried a voice in the middle of his dream. Rosethorn entered his dream, carrying a delicious-smelling pan of bread.** Then he realized there _was the scent of bread in his nose, and that Rosethorn was screaming at him from downstairs. Briar opened his eyes._

Tris immediately dropped his hands, blushing. She hoped he hadn't noticed. She would not like an angry and embarrassed Briar to ask her for an explanation, for the one she hadn't wouldn't have been a very suitable one. She'd been thinking about how strong his hands looked, but how they felt so gentle. She actually had wanted to touch them to her face,  but she had feared such a movement might have woken him.  

Briar turned and blinked at Tris. "We should go," he informed her. It was a stupid thing to say due to its obviousness. Tris, however, nodded and took her arms away from him. Now they felt cold without his warmth. When he stood from her lap, she felt even colder, like that life in her body had frozen.

Briar began to make his way to the stairs, but midway he paused and turned to her. "Thanks," he said with his face lit by a gorgeous smile. Then he was gone down the stairs.

Tris stood and began to follow in his tracks. She suddenly hated the concept of dinner and interrupting people and how people called loudly up stairways. She shuddered, now suddenly freezing. As she descended to the kitchen, she could hear the rain start to fall in a soft trickle outside.

Dinner was quiet. Sandry blabbed passionately about the great feeling of being home again, while Daja half-dozed as she ate, muttering curt responses to Sandry's questions. Tris and Briar stole glances of each other across the table.

---

The nightly meal was halfway through when Tris's sensitive ears picked up a strange noise coming from upstairs. "Something's dripping," she commented before setting down her fork. Her voice was calm. "And it's something in the house, not the rain." Indeed, the rain had started to pour down outside in great liquid sheets, soaking through dried dirt and into plant roots; Briar could feel their joy at the precipitation.

"What's dripping?" asked Sandry, putting her drink down. Niko, who had for once been able to make it to the table, glanced curiously at Tris. The redheaded young woman strained to listen.

"I don't know _what _is dripping, but I know _where _it's dripping. The sound is coming from upstairs, and it sounds like it's not happening in one place... it sounds like it's happening in at least six or seven places," she said in an intelligent manner. 

"The roof must be leaking!" grumbled Rosethorn. "I knew that we ought to have re-thatched it sooner. Well, we'll have to get started on it tomorrow, then." She stood up. "If you'd excuse us, I'm going to take the boy and Daja upstairs with some pails to catch the drips." She stood and tugged on the sleeve of her former student, glaring at him in a manner that would not take "no" for an answer. Briar gulped his juice and nearly dropped his glass on the table before heading up the stairs behind Rosethorn and Daja. 

They had reached the hallway but were still unable to see or hear any noises. Sighing, Rosethorn called down the stairs, "Nothing's dripping!" Daja had meanwhile slipped into her room.

"Actually, Rosie, something is definitely dripping," Daja interrupted, calling down the hallway. "You'd best grab a few pails." Rosethorn and Briar stumbled into the storage area and rummaged through a few boxes before snatching out some roughly-made bowls and pails. 

Carrying them under both arms, they entered Daja's bedroom. "And some rags, too, while you're at it," Daja added haphazardly.

Rosethorn jumped back and dropped all her buckets with a shrieking clatter. Voices murmured downstairs at the loud noise. Rosethorn's wide, angry eyes attacked the room viciously. Steady streams fell in four places from the ceiling, one of which was strategically over Daja's bed, blanketing it with water. Daja was hurriedly moving her treasured _suraku__ out of the way of the drizzle. Large pools of water spanned the floor, while drops also were scattered across the surface. _

"We need mops!" Rosethorn roared. A mad scramble sounded downstairs. Briar held back a snicker and shook his head, yanking a pail from the floor and putting it under the nearest hole in the ceiling. The pail tinkled as the water hit the inside. 

Tris and Niko appeared at the door a moment later with towels. Tris went immediately for Daja's bed, pulling a bucket from the pile and holding it under the dripping. She began to strip off the bed sheets with Niko's assistance. Sandry's eyes went wide as she saw the scene. 

"Gods!" she gasped, snatching up a bucket and setting it under another drizzling waterfall. "It's a mess in here!"

"Really?" Daja laughed mournfully, soaking up water from the floors. "I didn't notice." Her words surprised a chuckle out of the rest of them. Lark then entered the room and shook her head in disbelief before rushing for more towels. 

"This bucket is getting full," Niko remarked, motioning to the pail he held over Daja's bed. "Briar, could you take over here? I'm going to dump the rest of these full buckets out the window." Briar nodded and put a new pail under the running water over the bed. Niko then removed his own and headed to the window. He set down the pail in his hand and pushed up on the window, hearing that familiar soothing rain sound.

Something outside sounded like it was dying. The noise was the wind, screaming as it whipped through houses and trees. A huge torrent of rain entered the room, covering Niko's rich black robes with water. He gasped and slammed the window shut quickly, his dark eyes feverish. Everything went silent as the older mage turned with sad eyes towards the others. He looked like a drowned rat with his streaky salt-and-pepper hair and dripping clothes. Multiple pairs of cautious eyes grazed over his figure, noting how he hardly looked like Niko at all. 

Everyone submitted to roars of laughter. Niko chuckled himself, fingering the wealthy cloth of his robe with a grin on his face. Rosethorn's face was as red as the bud she was named for. Lark shook her head and dragged a bucket over to Niko. He proceeded to wring the water out of the sleeve. This caused them all to laugh even more.

"Come on, now," Lark said, taking Niko's bucket away. "We've surely got some spare robes in storage. Let's find some new ones for you to wear, and you can let these dry by the fireplace." Niko laughed and followed Lark to the storage area. 

About five minutes had passed before the two of them came back into the room. Lark was now holding a new green robe for Niko. "I hate to tell you this, but we passed Tris's room and heard some water in there," she said. Groaning, Tris and Sandry rushed down the hall in a whirl of red and gold and burst in through the door.

"Only one," breathed Tris in a relieved sigh. She motioned to the single hole in the ceiling. 

"I'll get a bucket," offered Sandry with a kind smile. Tris nodded to her friend and knelt to the floor, her rag in her hand. That familiar sensation of her least favorite chore came upon her. She began to soak up the water pooling over the floor, grumbling and soaking her dress at the knees.

"Gods!" gasped a male by the door. Whirling, Tris looked up at the great Raeldro Earthkin, who seemed like a mighty black shadow who had sprung a leak. His hair and his robes were wet; he had obviously been walking in the rain. "What happened in here?"

"We need to re-thatch the roof," said Tris quickly, turning back to her work. She cringed at the man, disliking him more and more. "Why are you here?" It was hard to squeeze even an ounce of kindness into her voice.

"Oh, just to visit," replied the man, looking with glisteningly joyous eyes around Tris's bedroom. _To see Sandry, you mean, thought Tris angrily. She wiped at the floor with a vengeance._

Raeldro continued, "I knocked, but no one came to the door. I figured that you couldn't hear me because of the rain and such, so I let myself in. When I didn't see any of you downstairs, I came up here."

"I see," Tris murmured. She didn't like the idea of this near-stranger letting himself into her home, even if he was Sandry's sudden lover.

A happy voice giggled at the doorway. "Raeldro!" Sandry squeaked, her eyes sizzling with love. "What a pleasant surprise!" She set down her bucket and wrapped her arms around his neck, oblivious to Tris's presence. He was soaking her beautiful dress, but she didn't seem to mind at all. His hands slid around her hips and he brought his smiling lips onto her own immediately. Tris's heart was thundering at the awkwardness of the situation. She could _hear_ them kissing, nearly smell that flowery love sensation blooming in their hearts. Sandry giggled as their lips broke apart.

"My love," whispered Raeldro in a soft, gentle voice that Tris could hardly hear, "how are you today?"

"Just fine, and you?" she said, laughing as he played kisses along her jaw line.

"Excellent," he hissed before kissing her soft lips again. 

Tris grabbed the bucket that Sandry had dropped to the wooden floors. Sandry didn't even notice; Raeldro had pressed her against the doorway of Tris's room, her arms wound around Raeldro and into his wet, silken hair. Raeldro was sliding his hands all over her body, his palms not leaving a bit of her untouched. 

Tris turned back to her chore, setting the bucket underneath the water stream. She could hear Sandry sighing and gasping as Raeldro touched her. Frankly, Tris didn't want to look. She had seen enough already, for one; secondly, she thought that she ought to try to be respectful. Of course, Tris thought that if they had wanted to make it a private moment, that would have been possible, but she still decided to leave them to their peace.

Breathlessly, Tris heard their lips break again. "Oh sweet Duchess," Raeldro groaned, burying his face in her shoulder. Her head tilted upwards, Sandry closed her eyes and breathed out the words: "I love you." 

Tris jumped at hearing that.

She supposed that at that moment, the two young lovers realized that Tris was in the room with them. Sandry gasped a little and Raeldro stepped back from Sandry, taking his hands off of her. Unfortunately for him, his back collided with the doorframe behind him. "Ow," he muttered, rubbing the back of his head. Sandry snickered playfully at him. 

"Here's your..." Sandry began, bending to pick up the bucket. "Oh, you have it," she said, interrupting herself. She folded her hands in front of her, feeling strange. "Do you need anything in here, Tris?" the light-haired girl asked, her cheeks pinkish with shyness and embarrassment.

"Oh, no," replied Tris, turning back to Sandry. "You two can run along." She smiled at Sandry, understanding forced in her eyes.

Sandry grinned gratefully and then turned away, taking Raeldro's hand. Tris heard them advance to Daja's room and ask a similar question. There was a long, weird silence, and then Rosethorn shooed them along with that usual terse manner. The young lovers thundered past her room, down the stairs, and out the door, calling a farewell to Niko and Lark downstairs. As the door slammed, 

Tris rose from her place and went to the window. Peering through the rain, she only saw rain falling diagonally and two forms seemingly running through the downfall. She supposed that Sandry and Raeldro were those forms. 

Tris watched them for a minute or so, seeing them skip happily and giddily through the rain; though Tris could not hear them, she was certain that Sandry was giggling blissfully. They were running to the far horizon, crossing fresh grass and that familiar winding path. They stopped and the forms came together in some embrace; Tris couldn't tell who was who anymore. Tris smiled, amused, and adjusted her glasses.          

Tris turned to go back to her work when she bumped into someone. Briar had been standing behind her; now she found herself awkwardly in his arms. "Oh, I'm sorry," she whispered softly, looking into his gleaming eyes. Somehow, she wasn't finding the will to move from the comfort of his hold. His lips were slightly parted in his surprise, and his crystal eyes blinked at Tris's own surprised expression. His hands had somehow found their way to her hips, while Tris's own hands were flat against Briar's strong chest. 

"No, I'm sorry," he replied, not moving either as he gazed down at her. "I came in to see if you needed a hand, and I saw you out the window. I came to see what you were looking at…" 

He cut off and laughed once. "...And we ended up like this."

Tris chuckled, too, but she noticed very well that neither of them were moving yet. "I was watching Raeldro and Sandry," she answered, smiling a little. "They look very happy together. I saw them; they were in here. They just flew at each other, unable to stop themselves. She...she loves him, I think." Something about meeting Briar's eyes as she spoke the word "love" made her tremble. Tris's eyelashes fluttered downwards. 

Briar said softly, "I thought you didn't like him." His hands still rested on her hips, more comfortably now. His voice was very scarce, as if he feared she might blow away if he breathed on her. 

"I don't," Tris said.  

Briar smiled back at Tris. She was so close, right in his arms. She was so attainable right then; Briar realized that he could have just pressed his lips onto her own then and there. And, suddenly, he discovered that he just wanted to do so. Her stormy eyes were watching him, trying to read his secrets, trying to gaze at his soul through his pupils. She was silent, as if she expected something; her lips were barely touching as she drew in a breath. 

Slowly, Tris slid her hands up to his shoulders. Briar's eyes jerked down in a quick motion to watch her palms make their graceful, beautiful path up his body. They linked behind his neck. She looked up at him, and his eyes met her own suddenly. _Why is she doing this?_ he asked himself, not quite understanding. 

Tris saw something in his eyes that lit her on fire. She could have sworn she saw that unnamed thing rooted in his eyes. In that green-gray iris, she wanted to identify Briar's thoughts, the exact words echoing in his mind.  Her heart thundered in her chest.  This was everything she had been dreaming of; this was that secret rose blooming in the sunniest corner of her soul, yet hidden. He was so near...  

But Briar couldn't bring himself to kiss her. Fear, black and ugly, was struggling from hard soil in his mind. _What if she hates me for it?_ a part of him protested. He had never felt so scared of Tris in his life, even when she'd threatened him in numerous ways. It was all that he wanted; but he could never face her.

He coughed and backed up a step. Tris released him unwillingly, her eyes questioning. "I... I think they might need some help in Daja's room, if you're alright here," he said in that husky voice. His hands slid away from her. Tris nodded, looking at her shoes. Briar blinked at her once and left in a hurry, suddenly feeling very awkward and confused.

He swore at himself. He reasoned, _She_ might have been trying to be nice._ Rosethorn glanced at him. Briar seemed nervous to her, like a high-strung horse._

_Then why did it feel so right?_ another part of him argued. _Didn't you like the way it felt to be in her arms? Didn't you tell yourself that you just wanted to kiss her? Have you ever felt this way, so strongly, about a girl before? This is everything you want. Damn you, Briar Moss. Are you going to let that pass you up? _

He stood up, seemingly being spoken to by an unseen being. "I'll be back," he told the others before rushing out. They sent him a wary glance and shrugged, returning to their work. 

Briar nearly skidded down the hallway, almost colliding with a dry Niko and a laughing Lark. He almost slammed into the door of Tris's room. He yanked the door open in a fury, about to pour out his soul to her. But he stopped, paralyzed by her. 

Tris was leaned against the window, her face to the windowpane. She was crying; he could tell by the sniffling coming from her direction. Sadly, he advanced towards her. Tris's eyes diverted. Briar could see the reflection in the glass; she was looking right at him by way of the glass with teary, gray eyes. He backed up a step. She didn't look very happy, and she didn't look like she wanted company, either. He bit his lip and wordlessly stumbled back out of her room, closing the door considerately behind him. 


	7. Chapter 6

Briar tossed and turned in bed that night, his worried eyes searching through the darkness for some salvation. There was nothing there but ravenous, black night enveloping the distance. He had screwed up, and he had screwed up for real this time. He couldn't shake that cold image of Tris's eyes watching him in that lost, distant way, her face reflecting against the tear-streaked glass of the windowpane.  
  
He softened inside. He had hurt her, and he didn't know why. Her eyes had been clouded over in stormy pain, pain without an explanation. Haunted by her vision, her sobbing ghost following him throughout the night, sleep evaded Briar.  
  
Surely, Tris was upset. She had every right to be, after he'd held her in his arms like that for long minutes, endless minutes, timeless minutes. She'd never asked for it; it had been an accident. Who knew if Briar had made Tris uncomfortable like that? He knew Tris well enough to be able to say that she never got upset to the point of tears without a reason. Guilt welled up in him like a jet-black pool, unforgettable.  
  
One part of him argued, _She__ didn't push you away, now did she? She even pulled you closer, right? Tingling feelings raced up his spine as he thought of the moment. Ecstatically, he exhaled those free, pure emotions from his blood, and then he inhaled the rush once more.  
  
_Her hands on the back of my neck, fingers nearly weaving into my hair, _he remembered. His eyes fluttered closed briefly, reliving those gentle touches. Suddenly, mentally, he woke himself up savagely, and his eyes sprang open. This wasn't the time to be fantasizing, not when the actual reality was so twisted.  
  
He swore at himself aloud.  
  
Briar reminded himself that Tris had been crying afterwards. If __that wasn't a sign that something was wrong, what was? He hadn't seen Tris cry like that for a long time, and it had never before been so feverish. Her eyes had been lit up in a knotted confusion. Angry at himself and at his stupid, pointless thoughts, which were not finding any sort of an answer, he slammed the pillow over his head in a furious motion. Hope drifted away from him like fog lifting at the sun's warmth, like a bottle thrown out to sea. His bottle was sinking.   
  
Bitterly, Briar closed his eyes to no avail. He would not fall asleep for a very long time. The worry of the current problem, as well as the soft yet constant murmur of Lark and Rosethorn chatting in hushed whispers in the kitchen just outside his door, kept him awake for hours.  
  
---  
  
Briar staggered lifelessly down the stairs early the next morning. It seemed that no one had slept well. Daja's face was planted on the table after working for endless stretches of time in the disaster in her room. She had remade her bed, mopped her entire floor, and rearranged her furniture to avoid the drips. In addition, she had woken up every four hours the previous night to change buckets, just as Tris had.  
  
Tris's condition was no better; she moved robotically and dazedly. Tris didn't look at anyone as she drizzled honey into the porridge; instead, her eyes lingered on some object in the distance, as if she was floating in an alternate universe.  
  
Sandry's tiredness was because of a different reason than Tris and Daja's. Sandry was wobbling as she poured milk for breakfast; she hadn't returned until late the previous night. Briar had heard her stumble laughingly through the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning; he thanked the gods that Rosethorn hadn't heard her and scolded her for it, simply because he knew it made her happy to steal away time with the mysterious Raeldro Earthkin. Even Lark and Rosethorn seemed a step behind as they tripped over their own shoes multiple times.  
  
They each grunted in various tones at him as he collided with the bench. Muttering timeless swear words against the furniture, he seated himself clumsily. "You need a brush," Daja muttered to him, plucking at a dark curl on his head. Briar swatted her away tiredly, his lashes lowered.  
  
"I was rolling over in my sleep all night," he explained softly, raising his eyes to Tris's. "I couldn't sleep." Unfortunately, the redheaded mage wasn't looking; she was staring out into the distance still, her eyes fazed over from weariness and worry. Regretfully, Briar turned away from her. _

  
"I should have come back sooner," Sandry mumbled, spilling milk haphazardly onto the table. She didn't notice her mistake. "I was out too late, and I'm so tired." Upon noting the white blotch on the wood, she started to sigh her favorite curse: "Cat dirt, cat dirt, cat dirt." Often enough, the others wondered what "cat dirt" actually was.  
  
"Where were you two?" snapped Rosethorn protectively, her dark brown eyes narrowed into snake-like slits underneath reddish-brown lashes. She mannishly combed her hair with her hands; the normally smooth locks were pushed up in various angles on her  
head.  
  
"Walking," replied Sandry in a brisk manner. Her crystal eyes seemed to defy Rosie, blocking out warmth uncharacteristically. She let her hair slide slowly over her shoulder as she rolled her neck tiredly.  
  
"You were walking in the rain? You're lucky you didn't catch your death, child," Lark scolded gently, knocking over a stool as she walked past the table. Some hint in her eyes reminded the thread-mage of previous sour weather encounters, particularly her ghostly encounter with the cold a few nights before.  
  
Sandry exhaled deeply, either out of irritation or sleepiness. "We were walking, yes. We went to the seawall and looked out over the sea at the storm. It was absolutely beautiful; you would have loved it, Tris. The sky was lit up in greens and yellows and shades of gold and blues as lightning flashed, and the water was in a white-capped rage, smashing up against the walls." Tris's eyes flashed, half with jealousy, half with awe and excitement. She felt her veins twitch in excitement, as if a bolt of energy had just struck her.  
  
The noble soaked up the milk she had spilled, oblivious to her friend's exhilaration.  
  
Daja groaned. "Yes, thank you for helping us clean up last night," she remarked sarcastically. Daja was usually not one to hold back her words; this time was not an exception. Flipping back her braids, she stared into the clear glass in front of her, watching Sandry's distorted image in the substance.  
  
Sandry's eyes shot up, as if she had been struck in the face by an unseen attacker. Her pulse quickened uneasily as she saw her friend glaring. Sandry raised an eyebrow at her grumpy dark-skinned friend. "You said that I could go," she reminded Daja slowly and carefully, who looked up at Sandry with a glare. The Trader girl then watched as Tris set out bowls before suddenly making a comment.  
  
"Of course you _could _go. I would not stop you from that man. But if it had been your room with the leaks, we'd have all pitched in," Daja said very calmly, looking straight into Sandry's eyes. Her voice was not angry or disappointed, but she was blunt, and she was right. Sealing the word as final, she clamped her teeth together.  
  
"I didn't know," Sandry confessed, unable to meet her friend's eyes. She didn't sound very upset, though, to the others' disapproval. "I'm sorry." Daja watched her friend move lazily through the kitchen, getting utensils.  
  
As she dug through the basket containing spoons, Sandry glanced up to briefly meet Daja's gaze, hoping for some sort of forgiveness surfacing there. In her eyes, Sandry saw a sort of mournful regret. Sandry saw now that Daja was not mad in the least; rather, Daja was upset that her friend had abandoned her. 

_They _would _have all helped me, and I just left, Sandry realized ashamedly. __I let them down. Bleary-eyed, the light-haired girl blushed crimson with guilt that eroded her heart. Shivering, despite the rising heat of the dawning, she laid the utensils on the table, her expensive dress the color of her porcelain face.  
  
"Next time, _saati_," Daja said, nodding her thanks to Tris for setting out the bowls. Sandry, nearly in tears, turned back to the cold box to put away the milk. Lark coughed uneasily and seated herself on her stool, having retrieved it from the floor. Rosethorn struggled to find her seat after kicking the stool out from under her twice clumsily.  
  
They prayed to gods, thankful for their meal. Sandry added, __Let Daja forgive me. Let them all forgive me. Her prayer held that same noble elegance that it always had; she hoped that it was able to win over the gods by its charm, but she figured gods were solid enough beings to look past exterior at the meat within. Or were they more superficial than she'd thought?  
  
After their prayers, the pot of oatmeal passed around the table. Tris nearly dropped it twice, while Sandry had to be tapped on the shoulder three times before she realized that Daja was handing it to her. A lazy aura floated over the table; no one seemed able to concentrate, and nobody seemed to care about anything anymore.  
  
The door opened midway through the meal. Niko, kerchief in hand, entered. He was coughing rather loudly, and his face was a strange reddish color. Mumbles and sedated salutations arose half-heartedly from the table. Niko nodded his greeting and coughed into his white kerchief once again, his face somewhat detached from the rest of him; his body looked quite relaxed, almost limp, while his face was stressed with his cold symptoms.  
  
"Are you alright?" Lark asked in a concerned manner, twisting backwards in her stool to see him. She nearly fell off of her chair; Sandry steadied her, her palm meeting green fabric at Lark's knee.  
  
"A mere cold," Niko gasped before bending over and submitting to the virus's painful wrath. The others winced at the muffled gasping noises that he made; he sounded as if someone were trying to strangle him.  
  
"Doesn't sound like a 'mere cold' to me, sir," Rosethorn chided, sliding off her stool. In a green and red blur she rushed to her workshop. Bottles clanked together as she searched for her medicines. Briar winced as he heard something cracking. Stumbling from the bench and tripping on the lip of his sandals, he headed for the workroom to help with the mess.  
  
"And so sudden!" Lark pondered. "Oh, dear, it was probably from getting all wet and cold last night, Niko. I'm terribly sorry." Her eyes were down in a genuine apology. Niko smiled at her kindly from behind his fabric, the caverns of his eyes deeper than usual. Had he been haunted last night, just as the rest of them had?  
  
"My own fault," Niko said, excusing himself with a hand as he started to wheeze. "I was the one who opened that window so thoughtlessly. And you did your best to get me dried off; thank you for that. This was inevitable." He pulled back his dark hair with a vengeance, frustrated by everything. Tying it with a leather thong, Niko lifted his eyes to the figure in the doorway.  
  
Rosethorn entered the room, holding a vial of foul-smelling liquid. "This should help you with your cough, Niko. Hopefully it will soothe your throat," she told him, handing him the vial. He opened it and peeked inside cautiously. Briar poked his head out of the  
workroom, his green eyes sharp. "If that's the Birch Potion, Niko, it's got all sorts of nasty things in it, like lard and ground-up beetles. You're better off with the cough rather than take that!" _

Rosethorn glowered at him with sharp daggers in her eyes; the young man ducked back into the room and started to gather up the shards of glass.  
  
From the other room, as he lazily swept, Briar was trying to find a good spot to interrupt Tris's thoughts to give her his apologies, just as he'd been trying to all morning. The table was seemingly quiet as Rosie dictated instructions for the medicine she had prescribed.  
  


Briar pawed at the ground with his broom and paused a moment, unsure of himself. What should he say? He gritted his teeth, vexed with himself. Finally, after he was almost finished cleaning up the accident in the workshop, Briar thought to Tris, I'm sorry about ... about what happened last night. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry if I hurt you or anything. 

It was difficult for him to figure out how to word his apology, since he wasn't even sure what he had done wrong. Briar wished that he was face to face with her, so he could see her eyes. What was she thinking?  
  
He felt her mind do a double-take. It wasn't you. It wasn't anything, Briar. Don't be sorry, she told him privately, dismissing his apology. I know that I'm not. With that, she returned to eating, pushing him away very quietly and gently as to not disturb her anymore. She wasn't blocking him out, but a part of Tris murmured to him that they could talk later.  
  
How was he supposed to interpret that? Was that an answer to the question he had been pondering? Had she really enjoyed lingering softly in his arms, holding him, feeling his hands sliding down her sides? Had he actually done something _right last night? Briar felt himself shiver, both inside and out.   
  
He disposed of the glass and the dirty rag soaked in dirt and Lavender and Vanilla Essence. The now impure substance was useless. He then settled himself down at the table and stirred his half-cold oatmeal. He glanced at Tris diagonally from him, his eyes questioning her own. _

And yet, he was unable to ask her through their mind-link, not because of anything on her part, but because of his own doubt. His desire for a response was unfulfilled due to the fact that the questions were all unasked. As much as he desired a certain reply, he feared another, and that tension was enough to block the words from his mouth, cutting off his air and making him turn bluer than the sky.  
  
Niko was tucking away his package inside the flowing depths of his dark robes. "One spoonful every day at noon," Rosethorn instructed in a monotone voice; the instructions were timelessly memorized. "That should soothe your throat enough to rid you of that cough." Niko nodded in understanding, nearly sweating.  
  
"Join us for the meal, Niko?" Lark asked, her warm eyes sympathetic. Niko shook his head, his eyes meeting hers underneath his dark brows.  
  
"This is not a social meeting," he said with a slight cough. "I came to speak with you all about something very important." His eyes held a spark behind them. Those at the table leaned forward in interest, while Rosethorn, still standing next to Niko, laid her hand on his arm in a question.  
  


"Trouble, Niko?" Rosethorn asked in a worried voice. Her eyes glimmered in a hesitant manner. She didn't know if she wanted him to answer. Her one hand touched her lips gently. Was she trembling at the mere thought of more trouble brewing ever so slowly at the horizon?  
  
Niko shook his head and coughed at the motion, his hand flying over his mouth. "The opposite, actually," he said calmly, as if he had no emotion whatsoever. "I have some news." Pausing to look at the others' wide, nervous eyes, he said, "We have a suspect."  
  
Lark nearly fell out of her chair, while the young mages shared excited glances. "Does this mean the trouble with the earth is going to stop, Niko?" Sandry asked in a high, joyous voice. The sleepy, foggy stupor that had settled over the kitchen table had risen and gone like a migrating dove.  
  
Niko held out a warning palm. "A suspect, Sandry, is innocent until proven guilty. This woman is only a suspect; she may or may not be the person we are looking for, but a good amount of the evidence points to her," he replied, his eyes cautious. Sandry bit her lip, nonetheless exuberant. Nothing could dampen her spirits; a suspect was better than nothing. Her eyes glinted like twin blue moons against a chalk-white sky.  
  
"Who is she?" asked Briar, his palms flat on the table. Lark looked down to see his fingers gripping the wood. "Where is she?" A billion questions popped up in his mind; he was only able to stutter out in broken, excited words the first two.  
  
"Her name is Woodberry. She is the Dedicate Superior of Stone Circle Temple," Niko started. The others gasped in shock, reeling back at some invisible blow. Tris felt suddenly as exposed as if she were naked; she covered folded her arms together, pulling them against herself in a protective way.  
  
"A Dedicate Superior was able to get away, hidden, even after being tested by a soothsayer? How could she have outwitted a soothsayer?" Lark wailed passionately. She echoed Tris's own fears. The taller woman's face was contorted in a strained manner that Tris had hardly ever seen her ever wear; the mask was usually hidden by that warm smile, but now it sparkled through her skin like gray mists.  
  
Niko looked down for a moment. "I was the soothsayer for Dedicate Woodberry," he said in a very blunt voice. There was a loud gulping sound as Lark swallowed her next words. He looked up and regained his composure. Was that guilt creeping up into his face, guilt the color of dried berries and fresh blood?  
  
"Dedicate Woodberry did not lie to me. The tested dedicates were asked if they were conspiring against the earth, if they knew of anyone who was conspiring against the earth, and if they swore to report any suspicious activity towards the earth. Woodberry answered truthfully to the three questions, replying that she was innocent of the high crimes and that she was loyal to the Living Circle. I would have known if she had lied; she would have glittered with magic in my magical vision," Niko said in that usual calm manner that was so distinctively his own. Tris sighed appreciatively; it was so comforting to hear Niko talk like himself.  
  
"How could she possibly be a suspect if she answered truthfully?" Tris asked in a confused manner, motioning with her hands. It was a habit she had picked up from her teacher.  
  
Niko coughed furiously into his kerchief for a moment before answering her. "A worker at the temple said that Woodberry would often disappear for long periods of time without returning. They reported her to the Mage Council, saying her activities were suspicious. A general search warrant was given so that her rooms could be investigated. What they found is amazing; it damns Woodberry in the eyes of any man." Niko coughed once and shook his head. "Woodberry had sap spells activated." 

When Briar, Daja, and Sandry looked at him in a sideways manner, he looked to Tris. "You understand what they are, am I right, Tris?"  
  
The redhead nodded, feeling ill. "Sap spells are useful," she told them. "They are used with a physical object, a sap case. The case is a three-dimensional rectangular box made of glass with a single glass sheet cutting through it in the middle. The middle glass piece has a hole through it. Depending on which way it is turned, the sap inside flows from one side to the other through the hole. Many sap cases can be attached together to make a very large case." The others nodded in understanding, necks craned in her direction.  
  
Tris smiled at their curious faces and continued with an air of intelligence, "The case is symbolic. The sap flowing through it is energy; rather, the sap is magicked so that a certain energy moves just as the sap does. The sap flows through the different sections, which might be symbolic for a certain force. You remember when Niko told us that each person has a number of forces in his or her body, such as the life-force, anti-magic, and our magical powers? The sections might represent one of those. Usually, the sap case is used to create a balance between these different sections in a person if they are thrown out of symmetry. The sap flows until there is enough sap equally throughout all the sections; then it is turned on its side to stop the flow."  
  
"So, basically, the sap case is used to spread magic from one thing to another, or from one part of a being to another," Daja concluded, looking somewhat baffled, cocking her head in a bird-like fashion.  
  
Tris nodded. "Essentially," she remarked. Her eyes fell uneasily, as if a shadow the color of midnight had fallen over her face. "At Stone Circle Temple, they used a sap spell on me. They said I had demons in my body, stopping up things. They hoped the sap spell would restore my balance." She bit her lip. If anyone had tried to pity her, she would have hit them. It still stung to remember the disapproving faces of the Stone Circle Dedicates, bleak and stony like statues.  
  
Sandry asked Niko, "But what I don't understand is how the sap case works against the earth. They're only used to move power within one being or one body, not from person to person, or from earth to person, in this case."  
  
"What Woodberry was trying to do was to use a sap spell to flow magic from the earth into herself," Niko explained, cracking his bony knuckles. "Somehow, she magicked it to work that way. How she did it precisely is beyond me; I don't know how something as simple as a sap spell could take energy from the complexity of earth. I think she had some other spells working with the sap spell to make it stronger, but that is immaterial. We know that Woodberry has been participating in this. We could detect traces of the earth's core in one of the sections, the section that the sap was flowing away from." He buried his face in his cloth again, his brows knit together in a pained way.  
  
Sandry brimmed with anger. "So this is it," she remarked. "We have found the selfish one who is responsible."  
  
Niko shushed at her and then coughed a few times into his kerchief. "The matter isn't that simple, Sandry," he told her, his eyes softening. "Woodberry's intentions were not selfish. She has a daughter, Lilith, who is very sick. In fact, Lilith is dying from a very  
serious and incurable disease. Doctors are unable to heal her completely. Woodberry had been feeding the energy into her sick daughter, trying to keep her alive with energy. She was trying to defy the inevitability of her child's sickness."  
  
"Are you sure?" Lark asked in a quiet voice. "Are you sure she's not making up that lie to get the Mage Council to let her go?" She was twisting her robe in her hands nervously. Her eyes had lost their usual magic; she looked dull and tired, as if someone had sucked out her life.  
  
"It's true," Niko replied. "Traces of the earth's core have been found in Lilith's system."  
  


"I suppose that's why she wasn't caught. She wasn't conspiring against the earth, so she spoke truthfully in saying that; she was just trying to save her daughter. But, Niko, what's going to happen to them? Woodberry isn't malicious, or she seems to be harmless enough, anyways," Daja reasoned, flinging her braids behind her shoulders.  
  
"No one knows, not yet," Niko answered before shoving his face in his kerchief. Once he was finished coughing, he went on in a very hoarse voice. "We don't know how much energy that Woodberry has actually taken."

Niko cleared his throat and went on. "As you know, there are all the elements of magic, such as life-force, common-bond, etcetera. Lilith's illness is in which her body cannot regenerate her life-force itself. Lilith's body is rapidly using the energy given to her, but her own true life-force dies still.  Without the power that her mother has been supplying to her, Lilith will die."  
  
There was a very long, silent moment after that. Briar felt his mind fill with sad images of little children dying. Flick, a fading memory, withered away in his soul. He remembered that he'd been holding her hand, whispering to her, as she had exhaled her last sigh. He vaguely saw himself sitting by her side for long minutes, waiting for her to breathe in again, but she had not. Very quietly, Briar asked, "How old is Lilith?"  
  
"She's nine," replied Niko sadly.  
  
"Flick was no more than ten," whispered Briar to himself. He saw her lifeless body next to him in the bed. He remembered plucking at her clothes, trying to wake her up. Harshly, Briar bit his lip painfully. The others heard his soft voice, so mournful, and gave him compassionate looks. Lark squeezed his shoulder in a sweet, comforting touch. Rosie cleared her throat brokenly.  
  
Niko coughed, interrupting their remembrance and tribute to long-dead family, friends, even strangers. He continued, "As bad as it sounds to say it, Lilith must die. Her illness will eventually kill her; her mother cannot keep using the earth's energy to try and save her."  
  
"What will they do with Woodberry?" asked Sandry.  
  
"If she is the one who has taken all of this power, then she is guilty of a very serious crime, regardless of her intentions," Niko said, putting his face into his kerchief again. A particularly nasty cough ripped from his throat, and Niko doubled over in pain. Lark rose from her stool, and Rosethorn next to him steadied the older mage.  
  
"Niko?" asked Lark gently, trying to get him to stand up straight. Niko looked at his kerchief as he brought it from his mouth. Bloodstains permeated through the light fabric. The young people at the children could see the red spots on the cloth, and they rose with worried looks on their young faces. Niko's eyes darted to Lark's; he looked afraid. His lips were touched with his own blood.  
  
Tris was at the water bucket getting him a drink with a dipper in a flash. Sweat formed on her brow. Why was Niko coughing up blood? Shakily, she went over to hand him the glass. His eyes met hers; he saw the worry rooted there and gripped her shoulder. "I'm alright, Tris," he assured her. She didn't know how sure he even was. She could see that his dark lashes fluttered with uneasiness.  
  
"Sit down, Niko," Rosethorn said, drawing Niko to a chair. Niko did as he was told, his water glass wobbling. Lark sat next to him and steadied him, holding his glass as he coughed into his red-stained cloth. More spots appeared as he continued. Lark opened her lashes as her eyes darted from his eyes to his hands, to the cloth and to the water glass in her hands. A gossamer of dizziness fell over her. She thrust the glass into his trembling hands as he lowered the fabric from his face.  
  
"Let's see if this can clear your mouth some," she said, offering him the glass forcefully. He took it, watching her face over the glass as he sipped and gulped the water. Lark's worried, protective, motherly brain surveyed him with a twinge in her heart. He washed the metallic rusty taste of blood from his mouth.  
  
"Should we call for a healer?" Sandry asked, twisting her gown together in a wrinkled mess, like a knotted sunset. Her loose hair fell into her wet blue eyes.  
  
"Go," Lark said, shooing Sandry with a flapping hand and taking Niko's glass with the other. "Moonstream will be at the Hub by this hour, and she'll know what to do." Her gaze fixed on Niko's weary eyes; Lark could see that the man's face had deepened, the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes sinking in sadness and exhaustion. Sandry was out of the door in a moment, her rose-colored dress a blur behind her. Sandry rushed through the gate, yanking it open with a vengeance. Panting, she passed a blur that might have been Raeldro. She paid him no heed. She was breathless and in tears by the time she reached the Hub. Slamming the door open as she came in, she saw a handful of dedicates there, seemingly waiting for someone.  
  
"Where is Moonstream?" she asked them in a hurry, wetness running down her face. Gasping, she impatiently watched them slowly look at each other and then back at her. "Where is she?" she screamed, her furious eyes meeting their own. 

She grabbed the first one, garbed in blue, by the top of his robe. Threads snaked out towards her like dancing cobras. She shook him once violently; his bright green eyes were huge in his fury and fear. She was a wild sight, her hair falling into blazing blue orbs and her lips set in a thin line. The third one, a stout, fat young man with blond hair, said in a frightened voice, "Third floor, I think." Sandry dropped the dedicate's collar swiftly.  
  
Sandry nodded her thanks briskly and rushed up the stairs with a loud thunder, spiraling up and up. She felt dizzy by the time she reached the top.

"Moonstream," she said in a sob as she saw the dark-skinned woman standing by the window with Dedicate Crane. "Honored Moonstream!" she cried again in a louder, clearer voice.  
  
The woman turned, her lips parted slightly. Seeing Sandry, the dedicate turned up her lips in a smile. "Yes, my dear?" she cooed, stepping closer. Her smile faded quickly when she saw the ugly tear marks on Sandry's face. "Child, what is it?" she asked in a hushed voice, cupping the noble's face in her right hand.  
  
"It's Niko," Sandry breathed in a tense manner, her voice strained against the ringing sobs that threatened to burst from the cavern of her throat. "He's at Discipline. He came with a cough this morning, but he wasn't sick last night. Niko said that it was only a cold, but now he's coughing up blood."  
  
Moonstream's eyes widened, the whites around them glistening. "He needs a healer," she said with a blink, letting her memory run through like a tape playing. Her full, dark lips came together in a deep frown.  
  
Sandry nodded. "That's why I came here," she answered. "Because it's Niko who's sick, I thought I ought to ask you for help to get a good healer." Sandry yanked a kerchief from her bosom and dabbed it over her eyelids to no avail; her face was still a sad,  
scared wreck.  
  
Moonstream let go of Sandry and knotted her hands together as she thought. Her eyes lingered on nothing as she gazed through the resources stocked in her brain. "A good healer is not enough. We need the best healer we have," she said in a determined manner. "Come, Sandry. Let's go get Dedicate Iris. She's very talented, and she should be able to figure out what's wrong with dear Niko." Her eyes had shifted to Sandry's face.  
  
Turning back to Crane for a moment, Moonstream called, "I'm going away for now. Someone is sick, and I must tend to him, too." They were gone from the room before Crane could breathe a word to them.  
  
---  
  
Once at Discipline with Dedicate Iris, a petite, bright woman with shining dark hair, Sandry had started to settle down. Her eyes, having been wiped with her own kerchief, looked clearer to any observer, no longer clouded with misery. Moonstream sat on one side of Niko, Lark on the other, and Iris in front of him. The latter laid her hands on his face and felt for all the magics flowing within him, her eyes closed. The others could see shimmering magic shining from her fingers, running through Niko's body. Briar had seen Dedicate Henna do the same thing while he was in quarantine during the blue pox epidemic.  
  
"I can't see what's going on, Master Niklaren," clucked Dedicate Iris confusedly. Her accent was rich as cream; the others could tell she was from the Namorn Empire. "You seem perfectly normal." She released him, her cool, earth-toned hands curling into the blue folds of her robe.  
  
"Normal?" snapped Rosethorn. "If you call coughing up blood normal, I'm a man." When Niko cleared his throat and looked at her in a way that suggested that she be polite, the prickly woman reduced her threats to glares and sarcastic sighs momentarily.  
  
"Aside from that," finished Iris, seemingly not dazed by Rosethorn's words. "There isn't wrong with you, Master Niklaren. You don't have any diseases in you. I can't sense any sort of sickness. You just... have this unexplainable coughing; your lungs are convulsing so hard that you're wearing away at yourself. You shouldn't have a cough! There's nothing in you to make you have a cough! It doesn't make sense." The others glanced at her worriedly as she closed up her bag.

  
Iris rocked back to sit on the floor, her blue robe falling to the floor in a pool like water. "I don't know what to say to you, Master Niklaren. I'd advise that you take that medicine that you say Dedicate Rosethorn gave you, as long as she's sure it won't interfere with the blood."  
  
"It won't," Rosethorn replied tersely. Her voice was like a guitar strung much too tightly. Moonstream cleared her voice warningly, and Rosethorn quieted momentarily.  
  
"We're going to have to wait this out, I'm afraid. Feel free to have someone fetch me if you need anything," she said, rising graceful. She shrugged. "I wish there was something I could do."  
  
"We wish you could have been some help," muttered Rosethorn. Moonstream clicked her tongue at Rosethorn. Iris seemed to not have heard Rosethorn's harsh words. She was ushered out of the door by a shaky Tris, her thin, dark brows together in a frown.  
  
"Look, it's almost noon, Niko," Lark cooed. "I'll get you a spoon so you can take that medicine now. We'll see if it does any good, alright?" She started to get up, but Daja's voice froze her in the middle of her motion.  
  
"And if it doesn't?" whispered Daja in a hushed tone.   
  
"It will work," said Sandry determinedly, grabbing a spoon from the drawer. She tossed it to Lark and stuck out her chin. "It will work, or I'll know why." Fire blazed fiercely in her eyes.  
  
Niko took the medicine carefully, being sure to tell Rosethorn that it tasted disgusting. The others laughed uneasily, unsure of everything. He continued to cough periodically for about ten minutes, but after that his coughing slowed until it gradually disappeared.  
  
The others breathed sighs of relief, though not entirely satisfied. They knew the medicine would eventually wear off. How soon?  
  
---  
  
After Niko had left, the six remaining mages climbed onto the roof and started to strip it of its worn layers. "We're lucky," said Lark, yanking off some of the still damp straw. "A great deal of this straw is good still. We're only going to have to re-thatch in patches. Just yank off the dark stuff and toss it down next to the workshop. I'm going to go pick up a few bales of straw for the project." She hopped down onto the roof of the shop and then flipped to the ground. She grinned up at them after landing the trick.  
  
Rosethorn narrowed her eyes at her friend. "Ta-da," grumbled the plant-mage sarcastically, throwing some straw down at Lark. "We know you were a tumbler. Now get on with your visit." Lark laughed, ducking the flying straw, and went on her way, hopping over the fence.  
  
The five remaining mages threw down handfuls of straw, giggling as the straw intertwined with their hair and clothes. Sandry, her rose-colored dress covered in the grasses, was having a particularly fun time with the straw, throwing it at them in a girlishly playful manner. Tris especially didn't like this prank; she could hardly get out the straw from her wiry curls.  
  
About thirty minutes later, all the old, decaying hay was off the roof. Lark returned with a wheelbarrow filled with bales of hay. "I'm going to get some more in a moment," she told the others. "And I'll get the spars, too."   
  
Lark smiled at the others and wiped her forehead. Her dark robe surely attracted light like a magnet. She rolled her sleeves up and tucked her robe up, and her willowy form, wheelbarrow in tow, vanished towards the storehouses. Briar hopped down to the ground and started to toss up the flakes, the sections of the straw that are naturally clumped together. 

"The straw is sticking to me," Sandry said in annoyed manner as she caught another flake. "Shoo!" she told it, flapping her hand.  
Grudgingly, the straw fell away from her sweaty skin; the sun was hot and high, and she was perspiring underneath her full gowns.  
  
Tris was laying layers of thatching over the places where they had ripped off the old, dewy straw. The deepest layers of thatching had been left, being that they were secured to the wood logs that were laid together to make the actual roof. Piling over more  
straw, Tris wiped her forehead. "So cursed hot," she muttered, taking the bandanna off her head and wiping her forehead with it. She retied it.  
  
Lark was back in fifteen minutes, this time with the spars and more straw. She let Briar continue to throw up the straw while running through the house and upstairs with the spars. She started to help Tris and Daja pin down the straw onto the roof. They labored tirelessly, sweat running down their backs and in their eyes. Periodically they stood and shook like dogs, trying to get the perspiration from their foreheads.  
  
Briar soon joined them on the roof. They put layers upon layers upon layers of thick, dry straw, and the chore was tiring and dull. Sandry tried to liven up the mood by tickling them all with pieces of straw, but that failed when Daja fell over laughing and nearly slid off the roof. Little Bear ran around in the yard, yapping at them impatiently. Why were they on the roof instead of being with him? He chased bits of straw that fell, yipping in glee.  
  
An hour passed. Nearly dead with exhaustion, the group had completed half of the roof's re-thatching. The new thatch was bright and clean against the dirtier, older spots, but despite the mismatched appearance, the new roof would do the job of keeping out the rain and insulating the house.  
  
"And we're not halfway done yet," Daja groaned tiredly. She wiped her forehead; straw stuck there. Lark laughed and plucked it off her face, flicking the piece at Rosie.  
  
"Listen, I've got to go to the stores and get more straw for thatching and more spars. Would you come with me, Rosethorn? I think I need an extra hand," Lark said. Rosethorn nodded.  
  
"You four keep piling on the leftover straw while we're gone, alright?" Lark instructed. She and Rosethorn vanished down the stairs.  
  
Briar stretched up, his arms almost touching the sky. He might have snatched white puffs of clouds from the heavens above. "Forget her. I'm going to take a quick break," he informed the group. "I'm tired and I need a drink." He wiped his hot brow with  
the back of his hand, moving curls from his forehead.  
  
"I think I'll go with you," said Tris, standing up from her place. "I'm thirsty, too." Her mouth was dry and dusty, like parched sands, after inhaling the scent of dried grasses all afternoon.  
  
Sandry nodded, wiping her face with her tear-stained kerchief. "Alright," she said, rolling up her sleeves. "We might as well all take a break, then." She bent and hopped down from the roof onto the top of the workshop and then to the ground from there.  
Her skirts billowed around her like a parachute. "I'm going to the Hub for a quick walk," she said determinedly. "Would you like to come, Daja?"  
  
The metal mage smiled, nodded agreement, and hopped down in the same way Sandry had done. Briar tossed down her staff for her; the dark-skinned girl grinned in gratitude, catching it with her metal-sheathed hand, which shone like a small sun in the light.  
  
"Can we meet back here in a few minutes?" Daja asked, flipping dark, wet braids over her shoulder.  
  
"Sure thing," Briar said, making his way to the ladder. Tris followed his lead, descending right after him. They went into the deserted kitchen. Tris reached the cabinets and pulled out a glass. She set it on the table and then paused. "Would you like me to pour you one?" she asked her companion.  
  
"Yes, thanks," he said, sitting down on the bench and folding his arms. He rested his crossed arms on the table and laid his head on top of them, watching Tris move around the kitchen. She flowed through the room like a dark bird, a raven, her skirts swishing around her. Ravens were evil birds; they sneakily ate the seeds planted in the garden. Yet, somehow, the association between the raven and Tris Chandler fit.  
  
Silently, Tris took another glass from the cabinet and filled the two with cold water from the bucket. She set the first glass in front of him and sat next to him, starting to gulp down the cool, clear liquid. She was oddly quiet. Briar wondered what she was thinking.  
  
"You're quiet, Coppercurls," Briar commented after she finished her sip. "Are you not talking to me still?" He leaned over to rest his head on the table, pushing his glass to the side slowly.  
  
Tris looked down and blushed crimson. She honestly didn't want Briar, of all people, to know what she'd been thinking. But when she glanced down at his face, she couldn't lie to him; his head lay on the table, and he looked at her sideways, his green eyes  
large. She couldn't turn that face down. _Thief-boy, if only you knew what you do to me_, she thought with feeling.  
  
"Does it look like I'm not talking to you?" she said rhetorically.

He paused. "Why were you crying last night?"

"It wasn't you," she lied. "Seeing Sandry and Raeldro just made me sort of – well, it made me start to think about – about love." She moistened her lips nervously, running her tongue along the opening of her small mouth.

"If you were crying about not being loved, you shouldn't be. You have a family here, and friends who are close to family," Briar concluded, eagerly wanting to end an awkward conversation.   
  
"I know. Niko might as well be my father, and Lark and Rosethorn have become surrogate mothers to me. You, Sandry, and Daja were tough to get along with, but I suppose we never would have been put in Discipline if we weren't tough," Tris remarked. She smirked at him as he did the same. Something in that sideways glance was attractive; was it his boyish slyness?  
  
"I'm glad we were a rotten bunch," he said passionately, his eyes blinking. Suddenly, he grinned crookedly. "I'm glad we still are a rotten bunch."  
  
Tris snickered and tugged one of her curls. "Well, all of us are tame now, and safe to play with. And you're right; we are best friends." Her face fell a bit, and she sighed. "But seeing Sandry and Raeldro reminded me that there's a third side to love. Their romance is different from the thing between us four. It's not better or worse. But, what if – well, I won't start, asking questions that can't be answered. It just upset me, seeing them, laughing, having something I don't." 

  
Then she looked at Briar with a question in her eyes. "Don't worry about me. You probably don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about. I'm sure you never think of it," she said to him. Her gaze seemed to permeate his brain. He pushed himself up from his position, looking at her straight, a lightning bolt streaking across his beautifully carved features.  
  
"Think about love?" he repeated, startled by her question. Why would she suddenly care? She seemed interested; her eyes were glowing like dark fire behind her glasses. "No." He paused. "I don't think of it often, at least."

"Oh," Tris commented. She eyed him. "It's alright if you've gone a little soft, you know. I promised I wouldn't tell before, and I'll promise it again." She sipped at her water.

He chuckled. "How did you know?"

Tris raked her fingers through her hair. "You paused." 

"It doesn't mean I've gone soft," Briar assured her. "But – well, you can't help but to feel a bit jealous of Raeldro and Sandry, making faces at each other all the time, and laughing. They seem happy." 

"Must be nice," Tris remarked. She stared into her water glass.

"It would be," he echoed. "But – I'm far from that. I'm brave, but never when it comes to girls."

"You wouldn't say anything?" she asked. Briar could almost, but not quite, hear the exasperation in her voice. "You wouldn't tell her?"

"She'd hate me," Briar said calmly, his green eyes looking straight into hers. 

"Not if she loved you, she wouldn't," Tris responded. "If you told her, everything would be right." 

There was a long silence. Their eyes clashed like swords, and their glances were sharp and sparking at the tips, dodging each other evasively. Tris's heart was stopping at the edge of a deep precipice. Would she fall into it, drown in the emptiness of it all? Or would she fly over it? The door was unlocked, the handle halfway turned. 

Tris didn't know what to do. She had forgotten how to speak. She had forgotten how to breathe. But she would not die at the hands of her gods playing the "what if" game, asking unanswerable questions. She knew that she _could _not die knowing that she had left things unfulfilled, his questions unanswered. 

She would strip herself of all fear. Tris's mind pleaded to him in an echo to her words, Tell me that you love me. And the message was sent. Exposed and weak, Tris was vulnerable.    
  
In a second, Briar's mouth was upon hers. 

Briar had kissed three or four girls in the Stepping Stone Islands, either out of curiosity or vague interest. Those kisses were nothing like kissing Tris. This was new, fresh. She was hesitant, tasting, experimental in her movements. He could feel her lips tremble slightly as they brushed his; he could taste the salt of the sea barely on her lips. Her breath quivered, and her touch was like that of a cautious child. Briar pressed her deeper, searching, yearning. 

Tris wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream. He was kissing her… it was surreal to her. It was like when Niko had told her that she had magic; it was knowledge, it was power, and it was the sense of belonging. Tris was half-afraid to kiss him, wondering if perhaps there was a mistake in all this. But she could not deny the thunder that rolled between her breasts, the pounding of her heart. She was shy, timid, and wanting, needing. Trembling hands found their way to her shoulders, into his hair, across his back. Her tongue brushed his; she felt him gasp.  
  
Briar was slowly using his hand around her waist as an anchor, drawing her progressively closer and closer. Their torsos now were nearly touching. He liked how her hands ran along the back of his neck, her fingers buried in the hair at the back of his head. 

Does this answer your question? he thought to her alone, holding her so tightly that he could feel the rumbling of their hearts together. He kissed her more feverishly, making her sigh and quiver. How else can I tell you – that I've gone soft for you?

  
---  
  
Outside, leaning on the front gate, Sandry had returned from her walk to the Hub. She was gazing wistfully at the garden, half brown and half a rainbow. She was also concentrated on braiding a small strand of hair, since she had nothing else to do for the moment. Her tongue curled up at the corner of her mouth as she focused.  
  
Daja, having gone as well, had not returned with Sandry, since she had met up with Frostpine at the Hub and was chatting with him. Sandry had decided on passing up on their conversation about all the odd metals that were being extracted from a nearby mine. Metals that couldn't be separated before had melted down and distilled themselves into new substances. Frostpine had said that it was a great scientific discovery, but it was something that never would have - or should have - occurred. Had the earth not torn the metals apart, the discovery never would have been made. At that point, Sandry had left. She wanted to hear no more of her planet's ill fate. Life was confusing enough, with Niko's cough and Raeldro romancing her.  
  
Bored, Sandry gazed at the garden. It only stung her more deep inside to see all of Briar and Rosie's hard work go to waste. _Damn Woodberry, she thought bitterly. __It isn't your fault that your daughter is dying, but other farmers are unable to grow  
their crops, and they're perishing, too. Do you care?  
  
Sandry hoped that maybe Tris and Briar were discussing more uplifting topics, and so she decided to go and see what they were doing. She swung open the gate with her knee and headed up the path to the house while finishing her braid. The door was open in an effort to air out the hot house. She was focused on her braid as she soundlessly entered the house. Behind the view of her hair, Sandry saw something that nearly startled her into a scream.  
  
Tris and Briar were kissing.  
  
Sandry dropped the braid and it undid in a second. She clapped her hand over her mouth, as if she might muffle the noise of a cry that snuck out. A million thoughts ran through her mind, all of them things that she could not fathom the answers to.  
  
Then, Sandry realized that if they stopped kissing that moment, Tris and Briar would see her gazing at them, and that would cause and interesting confrontation in which uncomfortable questions might be asked. Slowly, making close to no noise, Sandry  
tiptoed backwards out of the room. Her hair ribbon fell to the floor. As soon as she was safely on the front step, Sandry reversed and made her way as quietly as possible back to the gate. _

_My ribbon!_ she thought, suddenly realizing that she had dropped it. Knowing that Tris and Briar would see it if she left it, she turned back to the door, hurrying. She bent in the doorframe, reaching for the ribbon.  
  
She heard the sound of lips drawing apart. A sharp gasp from Tris and the cry of "Sandry!" from Briar alerted Sandry that she'd been caught. Sandry very slowly stood and looked into the house, shielding her eyes from the light of the shining sun. "Hello," she said casually.  
  
Tris's face was quite red from embarrassment. Briar hurriedly tried to feign innocence by folding his hands on the table. He'd forgotten about his glass of water. He knocked it over, causing water to spill over the wooden table. He swore under his breath and rushed for a rag to sop it up.  
  
"How much did you see?" Tris demanded angrily, her eyes alight. 

  
"See?" Sandry questioned. Tris and Briar seemed unwilling to share, so she wasn't going to ask about it. She would have to find out later, after things had blown over. "The only thing I saw was... was Rosethorn's garden," she fibbed quickly, motioning towards the plants outside with thin, worn hands. "That's what I was looking at outside. Just looking at them, trying to remember what they all are. Why, was there something to see?"  
  
"Nothing, nothing at all," Briar said nonchalantly, soaking up the water. He thought it highly unlike that Sandry had not seen them.   
  
Sandry decided to drop the next words, swallowing them. "I'm going to see if Daja's back. She hung back to talk with Frostpine." With that, Sandry skipped out the front door, glancing back with a smirk at the two, her face shining with amusement.  
  
Daja was just past the gate. "What's the rush, _saati?" asked the dark- skinned girl, one eyebrow cocked questioningly.  
  
Sandry grinned, perfect teeth glinting in her built-up excitement. Unable to contain herself, she snickered. "I've got something to tell you, Daja. Walk with me once around the house and I'll tell you." Linking her arm in her friend's, she said, "You'll never believe what I just saw." They started their trek around the house, watching butterflies descend on deadened flowers.  
  
Tris watched in numb silence as Briar wiped up the mess he'd made, blushing furiously. Nervously, almost, he returned the rag to its proper place and wandered back to the table, wringing his hands together. Tris, still sitting, looked up at him as he seated himself across from her.    
  
Let's talk like this, so we can't be heard, Tris urged him, her eyes flashing in a secretive, luminous way. Our affairs don't need to be public matters.  
  
True, Briar admitted, leaning closer to her, his lips slightly parted. _

  
So, before I say anything else, let me tell you – you're an amazing kisser, Tris thought to him, her eyes diverting to her hands, following his gaze. You really are.

Briar blushed furiously. Thank you, he replied, his mind-voice breathless. We ought to do that again sometime.

Preferably when Sandry isn't here, Tris commented dryly. Briar mind-voice laughed in response. 

She's not here now. Kiss me again. You've made me all weak in the knees – look what you've done to me, Coppercurls, he thought to her. He leaned forward again to kiss her.  
  
"Well!" cried an overly exuberant Sandry as she waltzed through the door dramatically.  
  
Briar stumbled backwards, his eyes still fixed on Tris's own. She was smirking at him, her head tipped back. The light-haired noble went on, "What a wonderful break! Perhaps we ought to get back to work before Lark and Rosie get back."  
  
Daja glared around the room. _At least they had a good time_, she thought grudgingly. _Now I'm more depressed than I was before. She tapped at the floor with her staff, marked with the cap of Tenth Caravan Idram, and sighed heatedly. They made their way to the roof tiredly, their eyelids heavier than their limbs.  
  
---  
  
On the newly-thatched roof that night, the four watched the sun set over the horizon, lighting the skies with purples, hazels, and reds. Itching, Tris watched Briar move slowly across the thatching, shifting his weight against the chimney. Tris sighed and gazed at the stars peeking out from their homeland.   
  
"Dinner!" called Rosethorn from downstairs; she and Lark had offered to make the meal that night, a chance which the young mages had lunged for. "Get down here before it gets cold!" Her voice was terse, and it meant business. They were sure she was wearing a harsh glare.  
  
Sandry and Daja rose very slowly, their eyes fixated on the motionless forms of Briar and Tris. They gave each other a sideways glance. "Aren't you two coming?" Sandry asked, her face emotionless. The two girls stumbled to their feet, feeling the thatch give at their weight.  
  
"I'll be right down," Tris told them, looking at them upside-down as she flipped her head over to face them. Her glasses slid up her nose and her copper hair pooled out around her freckled face, lit by a setting sun.  
  
"Same," Briar said, gazing out over the horizon. He could almost see the sea touched by rays of golden light. His dark lashes brushed his dark, perfect skin as he blinked, feeling the wind ruffle his mussed hair and wrinkled clothes. He seemed to be half-asleep.  
  
Sandry and Daja grinned at each other knowingly, though Tris and Briar didn't notice. They quietly descended down the stairs, their smirks widening, leaving the young lovers alone once more. Sandry was giggling slightly as she descended, while Daja flapped a cautious hand at her friend.  
  
As soon as the last strand of Sandry's hair had vanished down the ladder, Tris had crawled over to Briar. "What now?" she whispered to him in hushed tones. "What do we tell those two? They're going to hate us for this, I think."  
  
"We can tell them later," he said. "Must go you and gab so soon? Stay near to me." She sighed, her hair blowing in the wind; something about solitude was romantic to her. Tris slid her glasses farther up her nose. He seemed to have been thinking about this for a while. _

"They might have figured it out already, anyways, but they're keeping silent if so," he added. "We might not have to address that anyhow."  
  
"You're right," Tris admitted. "I bet Sandry did see us. We... would have been hard to miss."  
  
"And what does it matter? They're going to have to accept it," Briar told her. "They should be happy for us. And it's not like... like we don't like them now. They're still our best friends, and they're always going to be." He smiled. "There are three kinds of love. I just love them differently."  
  
"I hope they don't mind," breathed Tris, her voice dry. "They had better not mind, or I'm going to be very upset with them." 

  
"They'll get over it. They like us well enough to not like other things get in the way," Briar assured her, smoothing his shirt to no avail. A breeze whipped around the chimney, blowing their locks into each others' faces. 

"I hope that you're right this once, Briar Moss," she said honestly. She took his hand in her own gently, lacing their fingers together as if she were weaving. He turned his head so that his face lingered on the edges of hers.  
  
"I like to be right," he replied calmly, meeting her eyes. He realized that she was very close. Primal instinct took over his body. His hands slid away from her own, running up her smooth arms to lay, palms flat, on her shoulders. Smiling, she scooted herself over closer to him. Tris knew that she'd found the reason she loved him, despite his moronic boyish teasing and his hard exterior shell. Her glasses slid down her nose and off her face, landing softly on his lap. She didn't bother to get them; Tris didn't even want to move from his hold. 

His lips trembled against hers briefly, and delved deep.  
  
"Get down here, you two!" called Rosethorn from downstairs. Tris jumped back from Briar, landing on her rear on the thatching. Gasping for air, she watched the ladder with apprehension.  
  
"We're on our way!" she cried with a squint, trying to see if Rosethorn was at the ladder.  
  
A hand on her shoulder startled her. She barely recognized the blurry form as Briar. He slid her glasses onto her nose, grinning wickedly. "Once again, rudely interrupted," he whispered into her ear, causing her to shiver. "Let's go eat, weather-witch."  
  
She pinched his arm, looking at him from underneath her glasses. "Don't make fun of me, please," she demanded. Then she dropped down the ladder, laughing as she had not in years.  
  
---  
  
Halfway through the meal Niko entered in a rush. "I have news," he gasped, choking back a cough. His robe swished around him, seemingly as worried as he was. "Dedicate Woodberry is dead!"  
  
They all started to get up, half-shocked, half-frightened. Daja patted Sandry's back as the girl tried to swallow her bread. "What happened?" Daja asked. "Was she executed? I thought she was arrested, but I didn't think she'd even had a trial yet. "  
  
"She was arrested, yes, but not executed," murmured Niko. "Her death was self-inflicted, in a way. She begged to see her daughter one last time, and, given the circumstances, she was allowed to do so. While she was there, she gave her energy to Lilith, passing it through like a healer would."  
  
"All of it?" questioned Sandry. Her mouth hung open slightly.  
  
Niko nodded gravely. "She gave all her power to her daughter. She sacrificed everything, and now she's gone." Solid, startled eyes watched him steady himself against the doorframe. Lark bit her lip for the sake of the child.  
  
"Does this mean the trouble with the earth is over at last?" Rosethorn asked in a hushed tone, seemingly out of respect for Lark's tears. Briar hated to note that her face held that distant look, the one she wore only when she was at the verge of cracking her shell. Her eyes seemed fixed on air, not on Niko.  
  
Niko shrugged. "If Woodberry was indeed the one taking all that energy from the earth, then yes. If not, we're going to have to find a new suspect; Woodberry wasn't the one we were looking for. Only time will tell."  
  
Tris chewed her lip. "As awful as this sounds, I hope that Woodberry did it. I'm tired of...of everything, really." She swirled her soup with her spoon, watching vegetable forms drift through the murky liquid.  
  



	8. Chapter 7

The cool sheets were upon his skin, and the window was open. The meal had been eaten, the silence had remained upon the quartet, and night had fallen. He had kissed a girl today. Woodberry was dead. Perhaps it wasn't so bad of a day after all. The _shakkan's_ shadow fell across Briar's face as his eyes fluttered closed and sleep brushed upon him.

There was a knock out the door.

Swearing, Briar sat up in his bed groggily. "Who is it?" he asked in a scratchy voice.

The person did not answer. Instead, the door swung open, and Sandry stood in the doorframe, her features illuminated by the sparkling crystal she held in her hand. Still, in the dark it took him a moment to see her face clearly. He let out a slow breath when he realized that the look on her face was completely malicious. 

"What do you want?" he asked grudgingly, falling back onto his mattress.

"Oh, Briar, don't act as if I've come to behead you. I just wanted to – talk to you," Sandry explained, entering the room and kneeling at the side of his bedding.

"It's the same thing," he protested. "Can't you wait 'til daybreak to execute me? I'd love one more night's sleep before you pry me to death." He rolled over, turning his back to her. 

She grabbed his shoulder and rolled him back. "Nonsense. There's not much to say now, is there?" Sandry asked rhetorically. "I mean – well, a great deal has been said without having to be said, if you know what I mean." 

Briar looked up into her face, meeting her shining crystalline eyes. He read her meaning and nodded in a small manner. "I do think I know what you mean, Duchess." 

Sandry rocked back a bit, pleased by this. She combed her fingers through her hair, somewhat out of vanity, somewhat out of anxiousness. "Well, that being said, you understand that I won't need to keep you from your beauty sleep for long," she commented in a matter-of-fact tone. She lowered her voice a tad. "I didn't even know you – _felt _that way about Tris."

"And now the inquisition begins," Briar muttered, letting out a breath. "If I had told you, you would have gabbed." 

"I would not have," Sandry replied, smiling and seeming to put up very little fight. "She never mentioned anything to _me about it, either. But, then again, I wouldn't expect her to." Sandry traced her fingers around the curves of her light crystal. "How long has it been since you started being attracted to her?" _

"You ask hard questions," Briar said steadily, staring at the light hitting his ceiling. "I – I don't really know." 

"And how long has it been since you started _kissing _her?" Sandry asked, leaning forward in a curious, fox-like manner.

"Since just before you walked in on us," Briar retorted, giving her a little glare. "You didn't fool me with that excuse of yours." 

Sandry nodded and gave a little shrug. "I never thought that you would. It was a very bad excuse. If I'd had a few moments to compose myself, I could have given you a much better and much more believable excuse," she said. "I told Daja about it, too, if you don't mind. She would have figured it out eventually anyway, you know. I thought I had better soften the blow for her."

Briar made a face at her. "You're not really _upset _with us, are you?" 

Sandry laughed, her voice as innocent as always. "Of course not, Briar. Truth be told, I had thought that it was due time that you and Tris each fell in love. I didn't think it would be with each other, but that's not the point. The point is that – well, romance, and that sort of thing is to be expected from all of us at this age. I could never be angry at you for that normal occurrence." 

"Good to know," he answered simply. "Have you blabbered to anyone else?" 

"No," she told him. "But, well, I think Lark will pick up on it rather quickly. She has that motherly intuition and all." 

"As always." 

"What do you think she will say?" Sandry asked. "And what about Rosethorn?"

Briar thought on this. "I think Lark will try to give Tris a speech about love, and me a speech about respect. And then Rosethorn will make a rude comment on the whole thing, make us blush, and threaten to hang us in the well if we don't behave," he answered. 

"Perfectly worded," Sandry replied with a laugh. "Shall I leave you to your beauty sleep?"

"Please do. It takes worth, getting a face like this every day. And if you go upstairs to chatter to Daj', could you try to keep it down a bit?" Briar said, rolling over to not face her. 

"How did you know I was going to go tell her?" Sandry replied, amused as well as perplexed.

"Magic," he said. She laughed and stumbled to her feet. With a cheery salute, she bade him good night, and sweet dreams, too. She whisked her way out of the room, closing the door behind her with little more than a tap. 

---

Slumber was peaceful for Briar. He dreamed of his _shakkan__ growing very mighty, as big as an oak, and of sunlight scattered through its leaves. With the sunlight, ironically, there came to him a distinctly awful, foreboding feeling that he could not shake. Perhaps it was the instincts revived from his thieving days; but when Lark shook him awake in the morning, he already knew that there was something terribly wrong. _

"Out of bed," said Lark with a shake that was uncharacteristically lacking in tenderness. Her face was blank, as is a mud wall.

"What's the matter?" said Briar in a hushed voice. 

"Go sit at the table for now, and I'll tell you after I wake up Sandry," Lark replied. "Go on."

Briar exited his room, made his way to the kitchen, and sat on the bench idly. Tris and Daja were there already, looking both glum and afraid. He noted that Tris's face was particularly pale. "Do you have any idea what's going on?" he asked the girls.

Daja looked as though she had nearly drowned again. Her face was fearful. She cast a quick glance at Tris, who seemed too calloused to hear anything. "I think it has something to do with Niko," she said gravely. 

Briar's stomach leapt up his throat. "What about the medicine that Rosie gave him?"

"I don't know," said Daja with a small shrug that seemed to take a great deal of effort. "Lark didn't say a word to us about it. That's only what we're guessing; but, it does seem logical." 

Presently, Lark and Sandry came down the stairs. Sandry looked worse than all of them; her hair was wild around her head, and her eyes sparkled with a desire to know and a fear of the answer. She was busy asking questions while Lark repeatedly asked her to sit down. 

Sandry sat deliberately at the end of the table, leaning forward with worry cast like a shadow on her face. Lark sat at the other end with a face that was very, very long. "I thought I should tell you all together," Lark said cautiously. "It's – it's about Niko. Last night, his condition worsened."

"I knew it," whispered Tris. Daja turned a bit, startled; she had not heard Tris say anything all morning. 

Sandry made a face. "What do you mean, 'his condition worsened'?" 

Lark paused. She hadn't wanted to go there. She said, "He started to cough up blood again… vomiting blood, too. It got to be so bad that he could hardly breathe at all, and he passed out. Moonstream had to come in, jolt him to life with her magic … it was all very, very bad."

"He almost died, didn't he?" Sandry whispered in a hushed voice. The sun slipped through the window, striking her in the eyes as a tear made its way down her cheek. 

Lark nodded gravely. "Rosethorn was up all night, reading, looking for herbal remedies for the cough – but she told me not to wake you, Briar," Lark interjected. "She wanted you to sleep, get rested, not worry. And she didn't find anything that worked, anyway. Regardless, he's been sent off to the medical center at Lightsbridge." 

Sandry promptly burst into tears, burying her face into her hands. Daja reached out to touch her shoulder, but Sandry did not settle down and continued to sob hysterically. 

"Is he going to be alright?" Briar asked softly. 

Lark paused. "I don't know," she said quietly. "If there's anyplace in the world that can help Niko, it's going to be Lightsbridge." 

"And what if they can't do anything?" Sandry gasped between her tears. "What if he _dies_?"

"Don't talk like that!" Lark said quickly, a bit harshly. Her nerves were obviously completely shot; she sunk back on her seat, somewhat embarrassed for snapping at her former student. Sandry silenced almost immediately, her cries muffled by taut lips, and a tense quiet fell over the room. After a moment, the Hub clock started to chime its melody across the temple city. 

"Moonstream will take you to the earth's core instead today, and she will probably continue to do so until Niko gets back," Lark said in a quiet voice. The door swung open, and Rosethorn stood in the kitchen, her face very pale and serious. For one of the few times in their lives, they saw tears running down her face. 

"Something awful has happened," she said. "Briar, you'll want to come with me – all of you can, if you want to." 

Briar rose from his seat, clambering over the bench gracelessly. "What's going on?" he asked tentatively. The others followed him out the door. 

Rosethorn was wordless, but she beckoned with her hands. They cut across the winding road that gave the temple city its name, and their clothes whipped around in the ice cold morning breeze. Briar could see a large crowd gathered not far from them; the others noticed it as well. The skyline above it seemed different than usual; there was a great bit of trees missing from the horizon. 

"It's the wooded spot where you like to go," Sandry whispered to Tris. Tris nodded as they neared it. 

Sandry, Tris, Daja, and Lark pushed up, near the object of the audience's attention. Rosethorn pushed through the crowd, grabbing Briar's arm and pulling him into the center of the circle that their audience had made. 

Briar gasped. A large oak tree, which had certainly been living for thousands of years, had toppled over. Its roots reared in the air, like a horse with too many legs. It had dragged down with it several other smaller trees. They had crushed the bench there. The stream that flowed through the area had been completely dammed off, causing all of the stream's water to flood the grass there. He took a step closer; the soil was overly moist below his feet. He saw a glint a few feet ahead of him; the glass that Tris had made in the dirt from her lightning bolt had cracked, broken through by a heavy fallen tree limb. 

"It didn't storm hard last night," Briar said to Rosethorn in a bit of a protest. "What pushed it over?" 

Rosethorn gave him a sideways glance. "Go look at the roots on the big tree."

Briar wandered over to look at it; a few other Earth-dedicates were also standing there, staring at the roots quizzically. The frayed ends rose above him several feet, looming, as though the tree might right itself and crash back down on his head. The young mage peered close; the roots seemed to have open sores on them, oozing. Their condition reminded him of the plants at the laboratory, only less severe.  

Briar put a hand on the roots, gently. The pain screamed inside of his head, gnawing; he felt as though his own feet were dissolving under him, and he fell to his knees, still with his hands on the roots. And, behind all the screaming, Briar heard a quiet voice; it was a voice that did not fight, did not yell, but only cried slowly as it died away. __

A set of hands pulled him away, making him fall onto his back. He looked up through cloudy eyes to see the towering form of Dedicate Crane over him, hovering like a hawk. Crane pushed a canteen into his hands; Briar drank the water quickly, tipping the canteen back and letting droplets fall from the corners of his mouth. 

"I think it just died," Briar said as Crane took the canteen from him.

Crane nodded seriously. "That tree was here for as long as I can remember," he said in a low voice. The look in his eyes was distant, appalled. He shook his head, letting the sense tumble back into it and the emotional attachment fall out. "Go talk to Rosethorn about what she wants you to do."

Briar rose, but his whole body ached. He still felt as though _he had been uprooted. His legs wobbled under him, but somehow he managed to find Rosethorn talking to a handful of other dedicates. He met her eyes; he saw the sadness that resided in her eyes, too. She stepped away from her companions to speak with him._

"I thought that things were getting better," he said in an anxious voice. "When we went to the earth's core recently, it had grown. This doesn't make any sense." 

Rosethorn gave a sideways glance once again. "I'm not a woman who often gossips," she said in a warning way. "But I'll tell you this. There is always a guard at the earth's core who watches it for someone who might come to steal it. The guard last night was a dedicate from here; apparently his physical state was in a cottage nearby, while his magical body was at the earth's core. Outside of the cottage, there was a guard – an actual solider – to protect him. Someone told me that, this morning, they found the guard and the solider, both dead." 

"That means someone came in the night to kill them – and to get into the earth's core," Briar said with fear written on his face. 

"I haven't seen for myself," Rosethorn told him, "but a few other dedicates who went down said that the core was depleted even more so than before. Still – it may not be true. It may just be rumor, so don't go and tell anyone." 

Briar nodded dumbly. "And is that why this must have happened?" 

"Maybe," Rosethorn responded. "We haven't had any reports of other problems like this – not yet."

Briar's face fell. "What do we do now?" he said in a mere whisper. 

Rosethorn sighed. "Moonstream would, under normal circumstances, use fire to burn the dead trees. But, after this, she's afraid that we might lose power over the fire, or something to that extent. In that case, she wants us to try and decompose the trees naturally." 

Briar made a startled face; he had never done anything like this before. "Am I included in doing this?" he asked.

"Yes, is he?" asked a voice behind him. Crane stood there with an eyebrow cocked. 

"Of course he is. Why else would I have brought him here?" Rosethorn shot back.

"He's only a boy," Crane protested in a monotonous voice.

"He's a _mage," Rosethorn said simply and angrily. "I don't care how old he is, but he has the capability to do the same thing as any of these older mages. In fact, he's better than some of them. We need all the help we can get. Don't turn this into a matter of pride, Crane, not at a time like this."_

Crane turned on his heel and stalked away. 

Briar and Rosethorn met eyes for a moment, and they had a split second of mutual understanding. _That's my Rosie,_ he thought, proud and simultaneously abashed at the praise from his former teacher. The instant passed, and they joined the other mages to begin the process. 

It was quicker than Briar had expected it would be, but no less dramatic. Moonstream came before them, giving detailed directions, giving examples, while a handful of other mages warded the area. They did a brief exercise, exhaling, focusing. All of the mages, young Briar included, raised their hands towards the fallen trees. The image of it was firm in his mind; he saw it like an old man fallen on a battlefield, its feet calloused. He saw it settle from rigor mortis in his mind's eye; he saw it seeping into the earth. 

The trees grew soft, the bark became damp, and the leaves began to wither and fall. Slowly, painfully, they began to decompose, turning from light brown to dark brown to black, to soot. Briar was nearly blinded from the silver all around him, glittering on the trees, traces of the magic that surrounded him. He felt his magic pouring from him, like milk onto his oatmeal, flowing across the trees' limbs and breaking it down. He ran his magic along the roots of the great oak, and they splintered and softened. The smell in the air of the oozing wounds made him somewhat queasy, but they degraded to drip into the soil. It was only a few minutes until all that was left where the trees had been was dirt, dark between the grass. 

It was then that Briar's knees gave. Several other mages around him began to wobble and collapse as well. He thought he heard one vomiting from the procedure. The last thing he heard before he passed out was Moonstream yelling for healers. 

---

At Discipline, Briar awoke to a very scorching sun in his eyes. He saw his _shakkan__ on the windowsill ledge, looking crippled from the heat. He made to get up, but his stomach churned and his eyes became glazed over, and he fell back onto his mat, moaning. _

Lark entered, bearing a sweet-smelling tea. "So, you've woken up," she said soothingly. She knelt by his mat. "Drink this; it should make you feel less dizzy."

He wasn't sure if he was up to holding the cup himself. Clumsily, he managed to sip the hot liquid. "Could you take my _shakkan down from the shelf and put it on the floor there, in the shade? It looks – bad," he said between sipping the drink. Lark did so, shaking her head. _

"I think it's the sun, partially. But I also think it's –" Briar paused. "Rosie said that someone stole from the Earth's core last night."

Lark gave him a glance. "I suppose you would have found out anyway; and, well, you're old enough to know everything," she said calmly. "It's been verified; while you were sleeping, Moonstream made a formal announcement to all the dedicates, and messenger birds have gone to relay the news." 

Briar gave a small nod. "How long _have_ I been out?" he asked. 

Lark shrugged. "Four hours, give or take," she responded. At this, the Hub clock struck one in the afternoon. 

Briar whistled. "And where are the others?" he asked, taking another mouthful of the tea.

"They've gone with Moonstream – Rosie went, too," said Lark. "They're going to the earth's core to start the exercise again. Of course, you're too weak to do so, and you'll probably be out of service for a few days."

Briar sighed. "I wish I could do something," he whined. He looked at his favorite plant in the corner; it rustled dully, and parts of it were going brown again. "I feel silly, sitting here in bed, able to do nothing."

Lark put a hand on his own. "Is the tea helping?" she asked. He nodded to say that it was. "Well," Lark interjected, "if you sit for a few minutes and feel a little better, then you can come into the kitchen and help me cut bandages for when your friends get back in an hour. Goodness knows, Tris would appreciate it most of all."

Briar smiled fondly. "That's more like it," he said. 

---

Slightly less than an hour later, Daja and Rosethorn carried a fainting Tris into the kitchen, followed by a frantic, anxious Sandry. 

"It was awful, Lark," she said in between sobs. "Oh, Briar, if you had seen it, too, you would have been scared, even! It was so small, like the width of that oak tree that had fallen. It didn't look frightening or intimidating at all, like you could capture it in a net – oh, it made me so afraid to look at it. It made me so hopeless." Her hands were quivering, and she looked pale from the experience as well as the blood loss. 

Lark sat her down forcefully while she chattered. "I'll be going tomorrow, probably," she said. "Now, sit still. Stop moving your hands when you talk." 

"Tris nearly lost it when we were down there," Sandry went on. "I think she got so afraid and so determined when she saw it that she poured in more magic than she could handle. I even tried to use my smelling salts on her, and she didn't do anything but bat her eyelashes a bit and mumble!" 

Rosethorn took over. "She doesn't need smelling salts, that's why," she said somewhat brutally. "She needs smelling _herbs, and something to sip when she wakes up." Briar had dragged out his mattress for her to lie on, and Rosethorn and Daja put her there. _

Daja had worked up a terrible sweat, and the whites of her eyes gleamed in her face, as if she were a skittish horse. "Briar, I hope you don't have to go for a few days," she said. "You don't want to go." 

"I do," Briar said, but he was certain that he wouldn't think so after he had gone. "Here, let me start to bandage Tris up; Lark helped me to brush up on my bandaging skills." He knelt next to her, lying in his bed, although hardly peacefully. He sensed her, weak within his mind. Taking her hands in his own, he could see that she had cut her hands deeply, much more deeply than usually. Perhaps she had said the spell too forcefully. He began to wrap the gauze around them and secured the padding. 

Sandry had finished, and so Daja took her place. Still, Sandry talked. "This has been the worst day," she cried, slamming her padded hands onto the table. "First, Niko nearly dies, and then Briar faints and scares all of us, and then we find out that the earth's core has shrunken, and now Tris is lying here, looking terrible!" 

Rosethorn entered back into the kitchen in a whirl, having retrieved some herbs from the half-dead garden. "Perhaps these will do some good to Tris," she said. 

"Rosie, there's some tea left by the fire for when she wakes up," Lark said, finalizing the bandages on Daja's right hand. "It's left over from when I gave it to Briar, but there should be enough for a cup." 

Rosethorn nodded in acknowledgement. Crouching, she waved the strong-smelling herbs under Tris's nose. Tris sneezed and made to sit up. "What was --?" she started to ask, but then she felt her stomach lurch. "Oh, gods, I feel ill." 

Sandry was already there with the tea. "Drink this," she commanded. "It'll help, Lark and Rosethorn say." Sandry held it to her mouth and Tris drank it feebly while Briar finished up the bandages on her hands. 

"You used too much magic," Rosethorn said calmly, coming back with the kettle for Tris's emptied cup. "Moonstream said that you overreached so badly that you might be drained for days." 

"That makes two of us," Briar added with a grim smile. Tris met his eyes for the first time, connecting, seeing his affections written there. "Although, Rosie, I really do feel fine."

"You won't trick me, boy," Rosethorn shot back with a shake of her head, pouring into the cup that Sandry held. "See if you can handle your own cup, now, Tris." She was able to do so, and Tris felt much better at being able to feed herself. 

Briar rocked back and stood up. "C'mon, Rosie, let me fix your hands up." She sighed and looked at her palms. The cuts had started to dry, but from carrying Tris and pulling up plants in the yard, they had split open, leaving blood between the lines of her hands. The wounds were also fairly dirty. Submissive for once in her life, Rosethorn sat next to Briar at the table and let him rinse the wound with a plant solution, wincing as it stung. 

"I guess we _have_ put some manners into you," Rosethorn admitted, cracking half of a smile. 

---

Night had fallen, and Rosethorn and Lark sat at the kitchen table. The young mages had all fallen asleep early, exhausted both physically and emotionally. On the table, there were several carrots, swollen and filthy at the root, and several sported gruesome sores. 

"None of these are edible," Rosethorn told her friend. She rolled one across the wooden paneling towards Lark, who shook her head in disgust. "Some of the plants are alright – the tomatoes are, and so are some of the herbs I've been growing. But, potatoes, carrots, anything with roots is completely bad for eating. It won't be long until the earth's disease works its way up to the tops of the other plants and destroys them, too."

"Tomorrow, do you plan to pick them early, before they can get any sicker?" Lark asked. 

"I do. I'm afraid they might rot quickly, though," Rosethorn responded.

Lark put her head on her folded arms, resting on the table. "What are we going to eat, Rosie? Are we going to starve?"

"I don't know."

Lark sat up, huffing anxiously. "Well, we should be able to make plenty of bread; we have enough stores of already-processed grain to last us for a while, and at that stage, it probably won't decompose. And, if butchers are smart, they'll start to smoke and preserve their meat. And certainly, we can import tropical fruit from tall trees, like coconuts or bananas, that maybe won't go bad for a while." 

"That sounds like quite a diet," Rosethorn remarked dryly. 

Lark nodded. There was a silence before the Hub bell rang for midnight; Lark and Rosethorn looked at each other from across the table. Both were tired, weary women; both were sick of seeing their children grow to be afraid, to learn to fight, to lose their dreams. Lark had crow's feet prominently at the corners of her eyes, and Rosethorn's mannish haircut was streak with gray around her temples. 

Rosethorn stood. "Let's go back to our dorms," she said. 

Lark rose, too. "I'll help you pick the plants tomorrow," she added. 

--- 

Daja closed the letter. "They said that Niko's doing very well; he still has that cough, but he's stable. Apparently, he wants to come back here as soon as possible to keep working, but he still might not be here for several days until they're sure he won't fall sick again," she said, handing the note to Lark. The letter had been delivered a few minutes ago by messenger birds from Lightsbridge. 

Lark gave a relieved sigh, as did Briar, Rosethorn, Tris, Sandry, and Daja around the breakfast table. "I'll feel much better once Niko is back again," she said. "It feels empty and incomplete without him here." 

"Besides, we need all the help we can get," said Rosethorn. "It doesn't help that Raeldro is leaving this evening, too."

"He's leaving?" Sandry gasped. "Where is he going?"

"He's going to Emelan for a few days. He and the Duke are going to see what can be done about farmers' crops, which are having a large amount of difficulty," Rosethorn replied.

"He never told me that," Sandry said, stirring her oatmeal. "I think I'll have to go see him before he goes." 

"Well, you and Daja have to go to the earth's core today again," Tris begged. "Briar and I simply can't; but they need you still." 

Sandry turned her head towards Tris. "Of course I'll go. My duty, foremost, is to the earth that houses me, feeds me, clothes me, gives me life and magic. I wouldn't abandon my duty, not ever," she told her friend. "I'll put in a little extra for you, too."

"Oh, don't go so far as to do _that,_" Tris warned. "You'll exhaust yourself, and then _you'll be out of commission, too, and that wouldn't be any good. Could you pass me the strawberries, please, Daja?" _

Daja took the bowl of them and passed them to the other end of the table. Tris had started to scoop some onto her cereal when she noticed that some of them had become a dark red color, much darker than they should be. "Perhaps I shouldn't eat these. Look. They look bad, and they're going brown," she pointed out, passing around the bowl. She then proceeded to remove them from her breakfast plate. 

"That's not good," Briar said with a shake of his head. "They looked perfectly fresh ten minutes ago when I sliced them up. They were bright red, smelled fresh, tasted sweet." He passed the bowl to Rosethorn.

Rosethorn and Lark met eyes briefly. "If you already ate them, you might be a little queasy, but they shouldn't do you too much harm," she said calmly. "But I wouldn't eat these, of course." 

Tris shoved her bowl away. "They turned my food green! Look at it!" Even though she had removed the strawberries, the ooze they had leaked had left her food a sallow color, turning darker at the edge of the bowl. 

"I think I'm going to be sick!" Sandry cried, covering her eyes dramatically. 

Lark shook her head. "Come on now. No, you won't. Just don't look at it, alright?" Still, Sandry went visibly pale. 

---

It was shortly before four in the afternoon. Lark, Rosethorn, Daja, and a somewhat ill Sandry had gone off with Moonstream to the Hub, where they did the procedure for restoring power to the earth's core. That left Tris and Briar alone, lying on the mattress in Briar's room, watching the _shakkan__ shrivel up and die as ribbons of light touched upon it._

"I still have been giving it that plant food, but it's stopped working. I think that it's gone – immune, or something. It's just not right," Briar stated, running his hands over the branches. Tris watched his arms move and ripple, his hands touching it lovingly. "I don't think that there's any hope for it living anymore." 

"I'm sorry," Tris said. "I know that it means a world to you." 

"Well, it does. But I would be more upset if something happened to a person," Briar said, drawing his arm around the pot and holding it against his chest. "When Niko was sent away yesterday morning, I knew. I could just feel it. It felt horrible, and I was so afraid – what if he _had died?" _

"I don't know what I would have done. I don't know what _everyone would have done," Tris responded, touching the dying plant, too. "He means so much to so many people. He's vital in saving the earth." _

Briar turned to Tris and ran his hands over her hair. "He's been like a father to you – to all of us, actually, but especially to you." He looked at her hands. "Are your bandages alright? Do you need me to change them?" 

Tris shook her head. "They'll be fine. They don't hurt or anything like that. I just want to stay here, for now." 

"It's a peaceful moment," Briar admitted. "And, for once, we won't get interrupted." He gave her a smirk. 

Tris raised an eyebrow at him, matching his smirk with one of her own. "We're _ill, Briar Moss. We're out of service. Certainly we ought to be resting, getting back our strength so that we can help out once again," she said, leaning in towards him a bit, feeling his sheets rustle underneath her. _

"We _are in a bed," Briar argued. "Certainly that counts for something."_

"I wouldn't call this a bed," Tris shot back. She laid back, staring at the ceiling. "I have to admit, it is comfortable down here."

Briar leaned over her, blocking out her view of the ceiling. "Well, make yourself comfortable, Coppercurls," he whispered in a husky voice into her ear. "Because I am going to take advantage of the freedom that we have right now. Rosie's not yelling at us, Sandry's not waltzing in on us, nobody's gabbering and annoying us. I think we ought to – seize the day." He pressed his mouth on hers, softly, then more firmly. She slithered under his weight, liking the feel of his firm chest against hers, the way he tasted like freshness and Lark's mint tea. 

Her hair splayed against his hands, and her own bandaged ones pulled him close. Her fingers, the only part of her hands that were bare, tickled the nape of his neck. He moved his kisses down her neck, to her ear, to her collarbone, making Tris shiver and tremble. 

The Hub clock chimed loudly for four o'clock. Briar jumped, breaking their kiss. Tris stared back at him with her glasses askew. There was a moment of emptiness between them as the clock rang again, and they surrendered to laughter for the first time in days.

---

Sandry walked with her hands wrapped in those of Raeldro across Winding Circle's famous road. Usually, one might cut across it for the shorter approach; they did not do so, but they leisurely meandered down the path in circles upon the circles. Sandry had finished her exercise for the day, and, though she was tired, she did not want to let Raeldro leave without her saying farewell to him. Their bandages alone touched each other. 

"Rumor has it that you're leaving here," Sandry said quietly. 

"Rumor does not lie, not this time," Raeldro admitted thoughtfully. "I won't be long, though. I am only going to Emelan to speak with Duke Vedris." 

Sandry gave him a sideways glance. "Did you know that Duke Vedris is my uncle? I spent the last few years with him," she said. 

"Oh, I knew that. Perhaps you have guessed that my intentions in going to Emelan are not singular, Duchess," Raeldro responded mysteriously. 

Sandry stopped in the pathway. "I thought that you were going to discuss the state of farmers in the country," Sandry said questioningly. "Or am I mistaken?"

"Perhaps you have not guessed then," he responded with a small smile. "No, you are not mistaken, my dear. I am going for that purpose. But, you do understand, that I am interested in more things than simply magic, the state of plants, the condition of the earth. I am not a man of one passion." 

"I understand that," Sandry agreed with a nod. "But I still don't understand what exactly you mean." 

Raeldro took her hand, and they resumed their walk along the pathway. "I care for you a great deal, Sandry. I mean to say – I care about you incredibly, more than I've cared about anyone before in my life. Do you understand that much?" he asked her, giving her an occasional, somewhat nervous glance. 

"I do," she replied with a small blush. 

"Then, it should not be a surprise to you that I also go to Emelan to – to announce our relationship to your uncle, at court." This time it was Raeldro who stopped on the pathway, looking at her. 

Sandry's eyes widened in shock. For a man to announce his relationship with a woman at court, formally, was very significant. They would be considered a noble couple at all court events, for one. However, the more important thing was the level of commitment it took to do so. In doing so, Raeldro would express his sincerity in his relations with Lady Sandry, and he would profess a fealty to her well-being. All in all, it was a binding sort of thing, and it meant that he truly cared for her deeply. 

It meant that he was _extremely _serious about her.

His hazel eyes pierced her once before he kissed her slowly, tenderly. Sandry's mind reeled at the touch of his lips. Another question was answered inside of her head. Did she truly love Raeldro, really, honestly? And the response in her mind was a resounding "yes." She did not know why she felt the way she did; she did not understand love at all. However, she knew that he made her feel unreal. 

Their kiss broke. "It would make me so happy if you did that," she said. A beautiful smile cracked its way across his face. In a swift motion, he picked her up and twirled her around in a way that was uncharacteristic of him. Sandry had not known that she could make him so happy. Her dress fanned out behind her, and her veil billowed in the breeze like wings.

Tears fell down her face as Raeldro set her down. "I love you," she said with finality, sniffling. "Raeldro, I – really love you." A look of utter amazement fell like a shadow on his face, and he took her in his arms again, more seriously.

"Oh, Duchess," he cooed, "how did I ever become so lucky as to have you?"

---

"What's cooking?" asked Sandry as she entered the house. Tris and Briar, both looking somewhat rumpled, were moving around the kitchen. Briar saw her and smiled. 

"Bag, how about you start pouring drinks?" he asked her with mock rudeness. He made a grin at her and bent to get the bread from out of the fire. "I hope you like bread and noodles," he told her, "because we will more than likely be having it for quite some time." 

"Why is that?" Sandry asked, going to the coldbox to get the milk. 

"Rosethorn says that grain is one of the few foods that hasn't spoiled, grown festering sores, or turned overripe," Briar explained. "Therefore, we will be eating a great deal of food with grain in it until this world gets better." 

Tris made a grunting noise of disapproval. "And everyone is going to start filling up on the alcohol, too," she added on with a scowl. "The one thing that people don't need more of is an excuse to drink. First, the world is coming to an end, and then there happens to be only one kind of liquid that can be consumed." 

"Well, there is water, too," Daja said, entering with clean dishes and silverware. "And that is certainly all we'll be having tonight." 

"We could make tea," Briar said. "Lark and Rosie aren't coming to eat tonight with us, but they did leave us some packets to make soothing herbal tea with. They smell wonderful." 

"I think we ought to save it. Nothing should be _too _stressful tonight," Tris responded. 

_You might get stressed, Tris, after I tell you about what just happened between myself and Raeldro,_ Sandry thought to herself. However, she would not say a word until later. 

The table was set out with plates and forks, napkins were distributed, and the food was placed in bowls in the middle. Daja and Sandry sat across from Briar and Tris, who held hands briefly under the table. They bowed their heads, thanked their gods for the little bit of something they had, and promptly, hungrily, began the meal.

"How is the earth's core today?" asked Briar conversationally. 

"Not any better," said Sandry before taking a bite of her bread. 

Daja finished chewing before she added, "It doesn't look any better or any worse than it did yesterday. I suppose that no news can be good news, in a way. Still, you know that Niko said it sometimes takes a few days for the earth's core to process and replenish itself. Perhaps by tomorrow or the next day, we will see a difference." 

"And we'll be able to get back to work," Tris muttered restlessly.

Sandry smirked. "And what _did_ you two do while we were gone?" 

Tris scowled, embarrassed. "We stayed with his _shakkan__. It's doing badly, you know," she responded evasively. _

"Oh, so you were both in Briar's room? _Alone?" _Sandry teased. 

"Oh, come off it, Sandry!" Briar said, somewhat vexed. "When I told you about Tris and myself, I didn't think you were going to use it against me!"

Tris looked startled. "When did you tell her?" 

Briar sighed, setting down his fork. "I didn't _really_ tell her. She knew, of course, because she's Sandry and she knows everything. But, the night before Niko fell – fell more ill, she came in and pestered me with a million questions and wouldn't let me sleep until I confessed. And then she ran up, told Daj' – now, certainly, the whole world knows." 

"I _only told Daja!" Sandry protested. She reached over for another piece of bread. _

Daja pointed to her thumb. "_Saati__, what's that red ribbon tied around your wrist?" _

Sandry pulled back her hand, putting it on her lap so that no one could see the topic of discussion. Blushing, she tried to hide her face with the other bandaged hand. "It's just a thing that nobles do," she responded nonchalantly. "You know, it's nothing of any interest."

Briar, vengefully, leaned forward inquisitively. "What noble tied it on you?" he asked. 

"Raeldro," Sandry replied with an anxious glance towards an unsurprised Tris. 

"And what's the meaning of such a ribbon?" Daja asked. "Traders wear red for mourning, but don't other people use it to represent passion, or love?" Her voice was teasing, completely not expecting what Sandry was about to confess. 

She exhaled deeply. "Nobles wear it when their romances are due to be announced at court," she explained.

Tris gasped; she alone knew the significance of such an announcement, as it had been a common custom in Ninver as well. Briar and Daja looked somewhat confused, but Sandry was so embarrassed that she could not explain without getting flustered. 

"It means," Tris began to explain, "that Raeldro is very serious about her. It means that, at all court functions, they are to be announced together, seated together, and considered a couple that is romantically involved. He makes a pledge to her, swearing on his honor as a noble, and such and such. I don't understand the whole thing – but you really have to be in a meaningful, potentially eternal relationship to do so. It is a sign of real commitment to Sandry." 

"Excuse me for being uncivilized," Briar responded with wide eyes. 

"Does it have a charm, too?" Tris asked. Sandry, blushing still, held up her wrist; from the ribbon there dangled a silver charm with the initial "R" on it. Sandry then removed it so that she could pass the ribbon to Daja and Briar.

"Impressive," Tris murmured. _Perhaps he does care for her after all,_ thought Tris grudgingly. 

Daja cocked her head at Sandry, passing the ribbon to Briar. "Does this mean that he – he loves you?" she asked. "I mean, this must mean that this is more than a fling to him."

"I hadn't been sure, not until tonight. I had thought, maybe this will end. Maybe he will forget me. But not now. He – really does care about me a great, great deal to do this," Sandry explained. Her eyes brimmed with unexpected tears. 

Daja smiled. "I'm happy for you, _saati_," _she said with a nod._

Sandry, in a moment of pride, beamed at Daja. "And you told me that he could never love me, that we weren't on the same level, that we could never connect. And look now! He's telling of his love for me to all the nobles of Summersea," she said, smiling. Her tone was not accusatory, but playful, laughing, joyous. 

"I surrender," Daja said, throwing her hands up. "I'm glad I'm wrong, but only for this once."

"I suppose it's a pretty trinket," Briar admitted, handing the red ribbon back to his foster sister. "Just be careful you don't drop it down the well." 

---

Night had come. Tris and Briar laid, intertwined, on the hard, crisp thatching of the roof, watching a clouded moon pass over their heads, feeling the icy wind against their skin. His whispers to her faded easily, so they spoke via the mind-link, eyes meeting, words unspoken. 

So, Sandry and Raeldro are more than a weeklong romance, Briar thought, softly, in her mind. What do you think of that?

I will give him credit; he's got to mean it if he's going to Vedris' court. You don't know how big of a deal it is to go to the royal court to announce your romance, Briar, Tris responded. It's like announcing you're going to become a dedicate. It's like announcing you're going to attend school at Lightsbridge. I – I really am happy that someone's that sincere about her.

But you don't like him, even still. Briar stroked her hair.****

No, I still don't like him. But if he makes Sandry happy – what could I do about that? Would I ever want to act on that? No, not unless I really knew he was a bad man.

Briar kissed her cheek. I'd announce about us in court, if I was a Bag. 

Tris smiled at him. Thank the gods that you aren't, she responded. I can only take one Bag in my life, and Sandry has filled that position already.

Briar leaned back and stared at the stars. The sky looks cloudy; the stars have gone dim, he said softly. He looked at her. 

Tris looked up, too. She knew that the reason for it was that the air was full of smog, full of abnormal gases, thick with clouds sometimes. I don't want to think about it. Just – let's just be together, and forget it.

Briar didn't say another thing, but kissed her cheek, and the wind blew cold.

---

Several days passed. The routine became very standard. At morning, they would rise with the toll of the Hub's bell at eight o'clock. They made breakfast, which usually consisted of over-processed cereal and bread. After the morning chores, at about ten o'clock, they would go with Moonstream and perform the exercise. Not once did the core seem to change its size, depressingly enough. After a few days, Tris and Briar had rejoined the activity. They would then return to Discipline, often bearing a sickly Tris, and bandage themselves up. They would eat the midday meal. The afternoon would be spent on more chores.

Briar, being very familiar with such a process, would sometimes go find Rosethorn, and together they would work to prepare solutions to use for bandaging, in the case that they might need to use them in an emergency. Briar hoped that they wouldn't need them, but he would rather be safe than sorry. Regardless, it reminded him of old times – Rosethorn scolded him whenever he erred or wasn't precise enough, and he laughed at her face.

Often Sandry and Lark would go to weave bandages at the loom houses, although the process was tedious and the thread often had outbursts. They would laugh, and Lark would sing songs from her days in the circus. She taught a few to Sandry, who, being older, realized that a great deal of Lark's songs were quite bawdy. Lark made excuses, but Sandry only shrugged them off and sang the ditties anyway.

Daja spent a great deal of time over with Frostpine and Kirel, sometimes laughing and enjoying their company, other times helping them with their work. It was one of the few times that she felt alright, as though she might survive; she saw in Frostpine and Kirel a father who loved her and a friend who loved her. The hammering felt good to her bones, and a small – very, very small – part of her missed the smell of Hajra, the feel of importance, the pride in her doors.

Tris sometimes would do little chores around the house – dusting, mopping, washing clothes – simply to keep her mind off of other things. Occasionally, she would spend her time writing in a journal to relieve the tension that was building up inside of her. The book soon grew thick with ink and paper. When she was really restless, she would walk to the seawall, letting the salt run over her.  

They would return by the ringing of the bell at six o'clock, weary and needing to re-wrap their hands from all the day's work. The final meal was cooked and eaten quietly, as all were very exhausted from the tedium of the day. The remaining time before an early bedtime was spent relaxing with bare toes in the garden, on the rooftop, walking along the winding paths. They were usually in bed quite early.

It was not exciting, those days. But neither was it peaceful. Any extra time was plagued with worry and uneasiness and a looming, foreboding sense that the end was perhaps, unexpectedly coming. Their hands were sore; they had been cut open so many times that they all feared infection, and it made their chores difficult. The magical workings exhausted them and made their hours of sleep thoroughly enjoyed and often the only time of peace during the day. 

---

Two weeks had passed since Raeldro had left for Emelan. Sandry, disgustingly perky over breakfast, was worried over him. "You don't think he's gotten _hurt, do you?" she asked nobody in particular as she passed around bread. "What if he was attacked by bandits? Or, what if his horse fell on him and broke his legs?"_

"We'd have heard of it," Daja said comfortingly. "Sandry, why are you giving this bread to me? It's gone hard." 

"It's all we have," she explained with a shrug. "Do you think that Moonstream would have told us, even if we are 'kids' still?"

"We're involved in this mess, aren't we? I think we have a right to know about everything, and I'm sure that Moonstream would agree. Even Rosie's started to see us as adults; she told Briar about the earth's core shrinking, didn't she?" Tris said. 

"This bread is really awful, Sandry. Even _I can't chew it," Briar complained. "Do you want me to go get some more from Gorse?"_

"If you go, we'll never get you back, will you? You'll eat it all yourself on the way back," Sandry retorted. "_I'll go, if you're all going to complain about it so much." She hung her head. "They might not even have any, you know. I didn't tell you this before, but when I went to Gorse yesterday, when he gave me this bread, he said it was the last bit he had. Of course, he may have gotten some more in – but, well, my point is that I think we ought to eat this anyway." _

"That bad, is it?" Briar responded. He cut himself a bigger slice of the offensive food and bit into it thoughtfully. "You know, it's not half-bad. I've had worse. We've just gotten spoiled, you know." _I never thought I would have to worry about hunger again, _Briar thought to him. _I thought those ended the day I gave up thieving._

"Pass me some of that, too, street rogue," Daja said, giving an overly bright smile. "We won't put it to waste." 

Tris looked into the bowl. "We've run out of cereal," she said with a shrug.

"I could go get some more, if you like," Sandry said, standing from her seat. 

"It's really quite alright," Tris insisted. "The bread will be enough."

Sandry was already standing. "He might have a_ bit_," she said thoughtfully. "Surely that one small loaf of bread isn't going to feed the masses! Give me just a few minutes, and I'll be back." She put her hand on the door and swung it open. 

Niko stood in the doorframe, poised to knock. 


	9. Chapter 8

Things became somewhat better now that Niko had returned. Of course, he was still not his usual self; his cough still did plague him, and his skills as a mage were somewhat depleted from their usual caliber. Still, it became more of a psychological comfort that he had returned, safe and sound. 

Niko was very pleased at the work of his young mages. Their commitment to their role in the world of mages, as partakers in the grand exercise, was evident. 

Niko did not know how long he would stay. His presence had been requested at several other locations, to help with various small or large tasks. Lark insisted that he not leave yet; his health was not at its best, and his being at Winding Circle really did inspire the rest of them in the temple city. Niko gave in to her with the secret intention of being away before another month had passed. In the meantime, he drank a great deal of Rosethorn's tea; as delicious as it was, he began to hate it.

---

In contrast, Sandry was quite upset at the fact that Raeldro was gone. Though she knew that he had left for good reasons – one reason which she approved of immensely – it still pained her to not see him. Weeks had passed, and, having picked up some maternal intuition from Lark, she worried about him. 

She was tempted to send a care package to him at Duke Vedris' castle; however, the idea soon became unappealing to her. Sandry did not want to appear overly attached to Raeldro, and it might be awkward for Duke Vedris to have to deliver a lovely little package from his niece to her love. 

She spent a long time, while she laid in bed at night, tracing the curve of the letter "R" that hung from the ribbon on her wrist. The sway of it was elegant, and she was sure that it had cost him a substantial amount of money, for it shone with a radiance that she had rarely seen on metals before. 

Sandry dreamed at night of it, melting in her hands, as the cap of Daja's staff had done. But in the morning, there was never anything to fear, as it was perfectly normal. She meant to ask Daja if there was a special reason that it had not melted, but she kept forgetting to ask.

Still, Sandry figured that it was Raeldro-like to give her a very fine, permanent piece of jewelry.

---

Daja did not spend nearly as much time thinking about Kirel as Sandry pined over Raeldro. Perhaps it was because Kirel was attainable, near her at the time, whereas Raeldro was far away from Sandry. At the same time, it was very unlike Daja to swoon over a boy. She was much more independent than that, and she felt no need to long after Kirel when she had more important things to do.

Regardless, Daja did care about Kirel immensely. She did not know if she loved him or not; she could not distinguish love from the feeling of intense brotherhood that she felt with Kirel. It was different than her relationship with Briar; she loved Briar and cared about him briefly, but Briar did not invoke passion in her. Briar made her laugh, made her scowl. Kirel made her heart leap, made her skin sizzle.

There were things that she had with Briar that Kirel could never touch on. Briar knew, as a former thief, the feeling of being an outcast, unwanted and never trusted. As a Trader, Daja experienced a similar sort of terrible prejudice. Daja and Briar were both rough sorts of people, similar to Tris, except for more so. Daja would never be caught dead in any sort of dress; neither would Briar, for that matter. The Daja of the past would have been shy to admit that she was friends with non-Traders; now, she held a pride in the fact that her best friends consisted of a noble, an ex-thief, and even a hated merchant. But she was still a Trader, and she loved that. Briar would never admit to the fact that he loved his life as it was, padded at all the corners. 

Yet, at the same time, Kirel and Daja had certain things between them, certain moments, that Briar could not invade, either. Briar did not know the feel of metal underneath her hands, that hotness. Kirel knew that; she amazed him, still, with the fact that she could touch red-hot iron and not be burned. Still, Kirel understood the feeling of bending metal, of working it, of loving it. He knew how to work the bellows with those strong arms of his. They had the shared experience of Frostpine; and, yes, though he was a man, Frostpine_ was an __experience. _

There was one more thing: Daja had never felt attracted to Briar. When she had first seen him a few months ago, after three years, she had thought that he looked a great deal more handsome. But she had never dreamed of sexual relations with him. That was ridiculous. Kirel – well, she had dreamed of him. Her dreams had become reality, too, and she had liked that. 

She had liked that a lot.

Did she love Kirel? She knew that she loved him about as much as an 18-year-old could love another, which was saying a great deal, especially for Daja.

---

Aside from all that, Daja knew that Briar was far more preoccupied with a certain "Coppercurls," as he affectionately called her.

Sandry and Daja often wondered from a distance about that relationship, that blooming romance. They were, of course, too fearful of the wrath of Tris to ask any questions; they also knew that if they asked Briar, he would certainly start teasing them and asking them questions. And this would not do. 

Often enough, Sandry and Daja would often talk and speculate about things between Briar and Tris. 

"I would suppose they aren't very romantic," Sandry said one day to Daja as they fished water from the well. "I can't imagine Briar as being any sort of romantic, and I don't think Tris would appreciate it, either." 

Daja set down her bucket. "Well, I imagine that they _are passionate; perhaps they aren't in that flowery sort of way, but as people, they both can be very emotional."_

"Tris is _not_ emotional," argued Sandry as she lowered her bucket down, down into the well. 

Daja laughed. "Of course she is. And so are you. But you're both emotional in different senses. _Saati__, you're more likely to cry or laugh or giggle; you are also very, very stubborn. Tris keeps her emotion in her anger a great deal more. But the one thing that's the same is that you're both emotional about those around you. You are attached strongly to Raeldro, for example. But think about Tris and how she feels about Niko, how much he is a father to her. When she heard about him being ill – she was so paralyzed with fear. _That_ was emotional, too. And I would guess that she's the same way about Briar." _

"I suppose you're right; but I still can't see Tris in a fit of passion," remarked Sandry. "Nor do I really want to think about it."

"Perhaps Briar brings it out in her," said Daja with a smirk. 

"Oh, stop!" Sandry said with a laugh. "Are we done here?"

Daja nodded, and they made their way back to Discipline. They shivered a bit; it was not a cold day, but the air was filled with shadows as clouds moved rapidly across the path of the sun. When they arrived back at their home, there was a note on the table for Sandry. Tris sat there as well, writing the names of constellations in a book of hers. 

"Messenger birds brought that in for you while you were gone," Tris commented, hardly looking up. 

"Oh!" Sandry exclaimed. She opened the letter and perused it rapidly.

"Where's Briar?" Daja asked Tris. "He's supposed to make the next meal with me in two hours." 

"He went with Rosethorn to make solutions for bandages, again," Tris remarked. "But he said he would go to Gorse and be back in time." 

"He had better be," Daja said. 

"Raeldro has come back!" Sandry exclaimed, flapping the letter and dancing around the kitchen. "He wants me to go meet him at noon at the seawall!"

"Well, you had better hurry up," Tris said. The Hub bell, as if on cue, struck noon. 

Sandry made a grimacing face. "I'm going to be late," she cried. She went to the door but then paused. "I have to go wash clothes still," she said, looking at the pail of water that she had just brought in.

"Go ahead," Daja said encouragingly. "I'll take care of it."

"Are you _sure?" Sandry asked, remembering the last time she had left a chore unfinished to be with Raeldro. _

"I'm positive. Would I deny you your heart's desire over a few unwashed bed sheets?" Daja said with a smile. "Hurry up! You're going to be very late." 

"Alright – but if I don't come back in time for bread and pasta, come looking for me!" Sandry said, rushing out the door in a whirl.

Sandry whisked past gardens and cottages, the tans and browns and greens melting together in a messy whiz. Holding her pale cream dress above the dirt to avoid tripping on it, the young woman ran past the woods. She noted the familiar smell that the woods had; she knew Raeldro liked it, just as she did. 

She came to the seawall. She could smell the salt, which Tris and Daja liked so much; she could feel the breeze as it chilled her. Smiling and panting, Sandry plopped herself down there, leaning against a pillar of stone. She wiped her forehead, moist with her sweat, and she waited. 

"I wore myself out," giggled Sandry to herself giddily as she fell back onto the rock of the wall. She felt very tired. It hadn't been a very exhausting day, but she was so _weary_ suddenly. Why was that? She had done a lot of running, but she felt like she could just fall asleep. Of course, that wouldn't do! Raeldro was coming to see her.

And, yet, she was so tired. She figured that a little nap would do no harm until he came, and her eyes fluttered closed.

---

When Sandry woke, she knew immediately that she was no longer at the seawall. The air smelled of incense and coldness. Her back rested on wood rather than on stone. 

She sat up, and gasped. This was certainly not the seawall. She was in a large temple; it was about three times the size of Discipline, with numerous wooden benches scattered across the expanse of it. The black and tan walls, alternating, glistened with a polished sheen. Square pillars, colored like sand and coal, rose from the floor to the ceiling. There were at least 20 of these pillars, randomly scattered through the temple. There seemed to be no doors, no windows, only multitudes of candles all over the floor that still left the ceiling and corners deep in shadow. Upon closer examination, she could see that every surface – the walls, floor, ceiling, and pillars – all had words written on them in a language she did not understand. 

She was on a wooden bench, she noted. Sandry made to stand up and look around; she soon came to realize that her hands were tied behind her back, and her feet were tied to the leg of a bench. 

It was then that Sandry grew incredibly afraid. 

Her immediate thought was how to escape; this came foremost before the thought of how she had gotten here. She could see the ropes binding her were made of cord. _Perhaps I can unravel them,_ she thought with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. It was no use, however. She thought of, imagined, pushed her magic into the threads to undo them, but nothing worked. Upon giving the ropes a second glance, she noted that they were coated with silver, a sign that they had been magically tampered with so that they could not undo.

She swore strongly, perhaps more strongly than she ever had. Help, she thought. 

Voices answered her. Sandry? What's wrong? Daja asked. 

You sound afraid, Tris thought to her. Where are you? I thought you went to go meet Raeldro.

I did, Sandry replied. Only – I don't know where he is. I don't know where _I am!_

She stopped; she heard something creak. A piece of the wall opened up; Raeldro entered, draped in black robes, with his hazel eyes glistening with a multitude of emotions. He advanced towards her, and the robes he wore fanned out like the wings of a crow, and he looked down his slender nose at her. 

"Raeldro?" she asked, relieved and disbelieving. The look on her face was bewildered, frightened. 

"Yes," he said coolly. "It's me." Something about him looked sterile to her. She did not like his tone.

"Raeldro!" she cried. "Someone's tied me up here; please, undo these knots, and let's get out of here." As if to verify that, she fidgeted against the thick ropes that bound her. Her heart thundered like a train going over railroad tracks, and the look in his face was unlike any she had ever seen before. He always had a tendency to look distant at times, sometimes emotionless, but this was worse than that. This was cold and senseless, careless. 

He was silent. "Untie me, Raeldro, please!" 

"I will not," he said calmly. "Do you still not suspect me of wrongdoing, Lady Sandry, after so many coincidences, after all this? I am here not as a rescuer, but to finish what I have started." The earth shifted under his feet, anxious.

Suddenly, Sandry knew: Raeldro had been responsible all along for the trouble with the earth. All of Tris's suspicions rang in her head, and fear devoured her. Sandry didn't know what to do, what to say, how to feel; she felt her entire self trembling, and her stomach roared ferociously. She wanted to vomit. She choked on her words, nearly heaving.

"How did--?" she began to say. 

He sat down again. "Shall I tell you everything? Do you really want to know?" he asked her with a semblance of tenderness. Sandry, confused by him, nodded. 

He gave a cocky smile. "I'm glad. I have wanted to brag to someone, to tell them of my master plan. It doesn't matter if you know, because you will be dead soon enough," he said. 

Rage built up inside of her. She was now certain how she ought to feel, having heard the tone and lack of care in his voice. She knew only a strong anger against this man, her supposed lover. _How could he be so cruel, so heartless as to do this to the planet? How could he be so two-faced? How could I not have known? _

"And you won't be?" Sandry snapped. 

"It has been a long time that I have been stealing the earth's power; it seems to never end, to always rejuvenate. But I have become hasty; I will succumb to admit that. It does not matter, though, if the world ends. I will still be around," he told her. 

"Impossible. What do you think you are, a god?" she snapped at him. 

Raeldro laughed, throwing back his head. "How ironic it is, dearest Duchess!" he replied. "No, I am not a god – not yet. But in a matter of time, in a matter of hours, I will be. This earth will explode, but I will be untouchable, unstoppable." 

Horrified, Sandry shrank back from him. "Is that what this is all about? You've been stealing the earth's power to make yourself a god?" 

"What else could it be? I am the most powerful mage on this planet, Duchess! But – what about in 100 years? A man cannot live forever; his power will fade, and he will become nothing. But _I – oh, I will not become nothing. If I were to become a god, my power would reign eternally. I will never die; I will enjoy the pleasures of this existence forever." Suddenly angry, he gripped her by the shoulder, pulling her closer to him._

"Aren't you afraid to _die, Lady Sandry? Aren't you afraid that one day, no one will remember you?" He let her go, pushing her away, and he stood. "I have made a great name for myself. But I want no one to forget it; and the names that are never forgotten are the names of the gods." _

"You're completely insane!" screamed Sandry. "You've lost your mind completely!" 

Raeldro gave her a sideways smile, which was the most frightening thing he had done so far. "I know."

Sandry thrashed against her bonds. "If you kill everyone, there won't _be anyone to remember you! Did you ever think of that?" _

Raeldro looked at her pensively. "I will make people to remember me, to worship me. I'll be a god! I can make planets at will, bring this earth back to life, all fresh and new – isn't that a beautiful thing, Sandry? I'll make it be perfect." 

"No," Sandry whispered, still shaking. "You might become a god. But some things are even out of control of the gods. Everyone knows that."

"Not me," insisted Raeldro. "I have all the power. I'll be in control of everything – how can you deny the power that I have, Sandry? I've already won. I have nearly all the power that I want."    

Sandry, furious and likewise terrified, made a loud scream that echoed off the walls, and then she burst into tears. "You've done everything, haven't you? You killed Gazelle, you stole the opal, you made Niko ill, you killed the guard and dedicate at Winding Circle – you've stolen everything from the earth all along!" she sobbed weakly.

Raeldro stretched his arms up, unaffected. "You forgot one thing. I also framed Woodberry. It was true that she was using sap spells, but she wasn't draining from the earth's power. She was using them to try and rebalance the magics in her daughter. All I had to do was to put some of the earth's magic into the sap cases and into Lilith, and the deed was done." 

"You're a monster," she gasped. "You killed them both! And you make it sound like it was easy."

The dark mage glanced at her. "Sandry, you are so blind to the usefulness of power like yours and like mine. When you are Raeldro Earthkin, enemies are like insects, easily crushable. You don't know half of what I do – but mages like us can make a person's heart explode. We can telepathically move knives into their stomachs. We can constrict their airways with little more than a thread. Killing Gazelle was so easy, and the guard and dedicate, too. The dedicate put up a great deal of a fight, though."

Raeldro sighed and continued. "I would have killed Niko, too, but it would have been far too suspicious. He was wary of me; he knew I was hiding something. But he's out of commission now." 

Sandry looked away from him. "I cannot believe I trusted you," she whispered 

Raeldro smiled. "That was part of the plan." Sandry's eyes widened. 

Raeldro leaned back. "When I first met the four of you, I knew of your power. I knew that you had a special link to the earth. It intrigued me. I knew it would be vital to befriend one of you, then use you for your link to the earth. But when I met you, Duchess, I knew that I had become lucky. You were not only one of the four, but you were passionate and convincing. I knew you would be able to keep the others on task, giving power to the earth so that I could steal it."

"You used me." Her statement was blunt; she felt as though her entire body had gone cold. 

"Of course I did. At once you fell in love with me, I figured that pretending to be in love with you, too, would immensely help my chances of getting what I wanted from you." He laughed. "Do you not see why you were vital? You made Tris, the doubter, agree to work with me. You kept your own faith, thanks to the visions I gave you, and you poured your all into the earth. You were incredibly important." 

Sandry had never been so angry in her life. She felt her face going red, her power raging inside of her like a storm. 

Raeldro saw her discomfort. He put his hands in her hair; she cried out and pulled away from him. "I hate you," she said with a sincerity that surprised even her. "I hate you so much."

"That's a pity. _I care for you. I have always needed you. How could I have done this without you?" Raeldro said. He smiled at her with affection, but the smile was like one you would greet a pet or a smile child with. _

"You never _loved _me, did you?" Sandry asked. 

"I did love you, in a way. I loved the fact that you gave me power, that you gave me a chance to win at this." His voice was unsympathetic. "I simply cannot believe you actually _did love me." His laugh was hysterical. _

"What do you want now, then? Haven't you used me enough? Haven't you played with me enough yet? You've ruined my planet, hurt my friends and my family – you've done everything that you could to destroy me. What do you _want_ from me now?" Sandry yelled at him, tears running down her face. 

Raeldro chuckled. "You are a very special young lady. You have a link to the earth. You do not know exactly how you could _use_ such a link, Sandry. But _I_ – I know how it could be used. If I had it, I could drain the rest of the earth's power from earth all at once. That would give me just enough time to use the spell, written on these walls, and achieve immortality before this earth slips violently into oblivion," he explained. Sandry indeed did look at the walls; was that why she had been taken here, to the place with the key to immortality?

Raeldro continued, "If I drained the last of the earth's energy as I have before, by going down to the earth's core, I would not have time to come back from the earth's core and then perform the spell. The earth would destroy itself before I could finish what I need to. But, because of your link, I can make the earth's power come from the core to me – I will have just enough time with your link." 

Sandry watched him stand with an aching need to do the same, to flee. He said, finally, "I have always needed you, Sandry. I need your link to the earth. I need to use it for my purposes."

"I will not _give_ it to you! If I even knew how to do it, I never would!" Sandry told him with ferocity in her eyes. 

Raeldro smiled at her. "Then I shall take it. It will be easy to do; the cuts on her hands have surely reopened. All I need is a drop of your blood to link me to your magic – to link me to the earth." 

Sandry watched as he leaned closer to her.  His hand fumbled in his robe. From around his neck, he pulled a huge, thick black opal off. It hung on a silver chain, elaborate with designs of creatures and ancient languages. It _was _beautiful, Sandry had to admit. "Even I cannot hold the power of the earth's core alone." He stared at the opal with a sort of admiration. 

"The power I drain will go here. Finally, quickly, I will break the opal into an elixir which I have made, following the detailed instructions on these walls. It involves all sorts of interesting things – feathers of mythical creatures, pieces of gold and silver, gems from the Namorn Empire, the salt of the rocks of the Stepping Stone Islands. I spent a great deal of time preparing it while I was away in Emelan; and, no, Lady Sandry, I never announced us in court."

"So then you will become immortal," Sandry finished for him. "You will be remembered with hate alone, Raeldro. No one will worship you."

"That is what you like to think," Raeldro warned her. 

"Niko knows, doesn't he? He will warn the others about you; they will come to get you, even if you kill me," Sandry shot back. 

"There is not time! Don't you see? The earth is growing weaker and weaker as we speak. It is on the breaking point; I have done that purposefully. All I must do is to tap it the other way, and everything will begin to go under. Everything will end for you." He gave her a final smile. "Give me your hands now."

It was then that Sandry did something drastic. 

---

Daja was at the forge, alone now. Once she had heard Sandry's cry for help in her mind, she had rushed to the seawall to find her. She had not found her noble friend, of course. She had then rushed to Frostpine's forge, thinking that he had perhaps seen her, as the forge was somewhat near the seawall. When she had entered, she had only found a note from Frostpine, saying that he had gone to get food from Gorse. Kirel was nowhere to be seen. 

Terrified for Sandry's sake, she went to leave the forge and inform Moonstream. Her hand was on the doorknob when a scream and vision invaded her mind. It was the voice of Sandry. 

Raeldro is responsible for everything! **A million pieces of information flooded Daja's brain; she knew everything that Raeldro had done, everything that he had told Sandry. It was as though Sandry had given a piece of her mind to Daja. Tall stone and sand pillars loomed in front of her. She saw Raeldro, robed in shimmering black. He held the opal in his hand, and candles lit his face. Daja saw Niko, coughing up blood in front of her. She saw the earth's core, shrunken and withering. She saw metals melting in her hands. **

You must come to me. He's going to kill us all, now, if we don't do something.

Daja felt herself ripped from her own body, which fell to its knees on the floor of the forge. 

---

Briar, too, had heard Sandry's plea inside his mind. He had heard it as he was getting food from Dedicate Gorse. Never before had he wanted the man to move more quickly; Briar had shoved the food in his basket and ran off up the stairs of the Hub. Now, he entered Moonstream's office at the protest of a number of dedicates. 

"Honored Moonstream," he began to say, setting down his basket. The last thing he saw was a glass case, glimmering silver on a desk. Suddenly, he collapsed to his knees, his hands over his ears; Sandry's voice cried out in his mind, and images came to him. 

Raeldro is the one who has been destroying the earth.** Briar instantly received all the information that Sandry had received from Raeldro, and the shock of it made him reel. Briar saw the images of Raeldro, dressed in black, bearing the opal. He saw his _shakkan_,_ treasured as it was, withering, falling, bending wrongly, its roots swathed in mysterious sores. He saw the way that Rosie had come into Discipline with a tear on her face after the great oak had fallen. _**

We have to do something, or this is the end for all of us. He intends to do something right now!

Moonstream ran to catch the body of Briar, knocking the apples from the basket all over the floor. One word escaped his lips as his magical self passed out of it: "Raeldro." 

Moonstream's eyes rose steadily. "He's left," she said solemnly. 

---

Tris was in her room, reading. Briar and Daja had left, searching for Sandry; Tris had decided to stay and let Lark, Niko, and Rosethorn know what had happened when they came for the next meal. She was trying to keep from thinking about it by reading, but nothing seemed to shake the feeling of unease that had settled over her. She knew that something was desperately wrong. 

She heard the door open. Tris was, for the only time in her life, disappointed to hear Lark's voice. She had been foolishly hoping that maybe Sandry would enter, well and alive, at any moment. "Is anyone here?" Lark cried. 

Tris made to stand up, but her book fell, and her legs buckled under her as Sandry invaded her mind. 

You were right all along. It was Raeldro. **Everything that Sandry had heard from Raeldro flooded Tris's mind. She boiled with anger and disgust. Tris, too, saw Raeldro's face, eerie, mysterious, haunting. Her heart leapt to see the opal shimmering within his palm. She saw, as if for the first time, the cloud falling from the sky to break, and the dimness of the stars at night. **

Come with me and let's stop him, before it's too late.

Tris felt herself falling away; she saw her own body, lying on the floor, for a brief instant before something yanked her away. 

---

It wasn't long before Sandry has realized what she had done. She had ripped her hand forcefully out of the knot on her wrists; as a result, her fingers were bleeding rapidly, and she had shaved off several layers of skin. With that bloody hand, she had grabbed the pouch around her neck, reached for the thread circle, and _pulled._

Raeldro advanced upon her. "You're making this very easy for me. You give me a big splash of your blood, rather than a drop." His eyes were disgustingly hungry upon her. 

"Get away," she hissed, pulling her bleeding hand away from him. She was so livid that the threads on her clothing began to snake out of their weave. 

He slapped her viciously and grabbed her wounded hand. Her blood was all over his fingers. "At last," he said. "All I need to do is to go through your magic, touch that core to sip of its wealth." His eyes closed in concentration; Sandry was helpless, watching, sobbing from the pain in her hand and the feeling of guilt that plagued her. It seemed that he had triumphed; a silver tint came upon the opal. Sandry knew he had just touched upon the link that she had. 

Suddenly, he screamed, flailing his hands. The blood on him burned; it seemed to evaporate, leaving his hands bare. Sandry could see that there were now scars where the blood had been. 

I made the iron in her blood very, very hot, said a voice. Could you tell, Raeldro? Sandry whirled and gasped. Before her there floated three figures. 

The first was the one who had spoken. It was Daja's magical self; she, somehow, looked more mature, older, like the woman she would someday become. She looked like a bronze-red specter, standing tall and clothed in rich Trader garb, her staff in her hand, capped and all. The muscles of her blacksmith's arms moved with their strength shining through. Her smile was confident and her braids were long. Her one hand was pointing towards Raeldro, having just used her magic on him.

Tris was there, too, blue-tinted like a dark sea. Her glasses were gone and her curls, long and flowing, whipped around her head in a nonexistent wind. A dress billowed, as though in a salty breeze, and a cape rose behind her as though it had a life of its own. Her freckles seemed to have faded, while her cheekbones had become more defined. Charms for good weather chimed around her neck, and the look in her eyes reflected Runog's Fire.

Briar's magical self was a pine-green, looking more like a man than ever before, tall with slanting, narrowed eyes. He was dressed with tall leather boots, a thick linen shirt, worn, dark pants. He wore knives all around his waist and on the outsides of his boots; he bent to retrieve one. He looked powerful, stately, sturdy, intimidating. A small pouch containing seeds hung from his left hip, and the black crosses on his hands were stretched out with age. 

C'mon, Bag. Come out and play with us, chided the man-sized image of Briar. Sandry nodded her head. Alone, she could not face Raeldro. But, with the other three, she thought that there was maybe a chance. Sandry wiped the blood onto her dress to be certain that Raeldro could not use it against her.

She slipped out of herself, and her body went limp. Sandry saw her new, golden magical self; she was dressed in wealthy noble clothes of fine threads and many colors, and her hair was long and flowing around her. Slung over her shoulder was a bag of threads, needles, spindles, and even the precious thread-circle itself. She wore expensive jewelry and her face was matured. She felt her own power; she felt that she had come with a purpose to serve. She felt angry and ready. 

She had loved Raeldro; this much was true. But she was angry at him. That anger took over her; she would not allow herself to feel sorry for herself now. That time would come later, if she was lucky enough to survive. She focused, drawing distracting thoughts out of her head like pulling a thread out of the eye of a needle.

"I can play this game, too," Raeldro replied. His magical body collapsed with a sickening thud and from it sprang his magical self, which somehow looked a great deal uglier than his bodily self. Do you mean to fight me, little ones? Raeldro asked mockingly. 

There was a great tremble underneath them all. The ceiling began to crack. They could each feel the earth underneath them, moaning as though it had a dreadful stomachache. 

Look what you've done! Now the earth has been pushed over the limit before I received all the power I needed! Raeldro said furiously. His magical self pulled the opal off of his body; he also took a small vial, which they assumed to be his magical elixir. You leave me no choice but to do this the hard way. He vanished from their sight. 

He's going to the center of the earth to get the last bit of power that he can, warned Tris angrily. We have to go after him. 

I don't know how to get there exactly, Sandry thought to the others.

Briar shook his head. It can't be that hard. We just go _deep, don't we? As deep as we can go must be where the core is._

They dove, somehow sliding through the marble tiles of the floor. They went deep, through foundation, through shifting rocks, through fossils, through eons and eons of history covered by the dirt of today. It was frightening; they could see the earth shifting, and they could feel its tension. They could feel it, wanting to crack. 

It wasn't very long until they reached the earth's core. They saw Raeldro's magical self, glittering white. He had on several opal rings; Sandry had not noticed this before. He was using them to draw out energy from the earth's core. They drew back before he saw them. Sandry, as quickly as she would, drew a cloth out of her bag. Spelling it as she had learned to do with Adrienna, she spelled it for invisibility and draped it over them. 

So that's how he was doing it all along, even before he stole Gazelle's opal, Tris remarked. 

He's not going to be able to do it, though. He needs to be able to read the spell up in the temple first; there won't be time to take the earth's energy and then to get back to the surface in time to perform his spell, Daja reminded them. 

Tris's eyes widened. No – wait. This is what he's doing. Look – he didn't take all the earth's energy! He left just enough so that he can get back to the surface. This was true; there was still a tiny ball, the size of a baby's fist, left in the middle of the great, empty core. 

But he still doesn't have enough energy, Briar protested. 

Sandry trembled. He's going to use my blood again! We have to stop him!

No, he won't. He knows I'll burn him again before he can get any energy, Daja argued. 

Tris paused. Where else could he get energy from, then?

It hit Sandry like a punch in the face. Woodberry – he put some of the earth's magic in the sap cases that she used. That's the only place, aside from Lilith's body, and she's probably dead by now.

But Woodberry was at Stone CircleTemple. He won't make it there in time, even though he _did_ leave some magic left, Briar protested. 

Tris interrupted. They wouldn't have left the sap cases there. That would have been stupid. They probably didn't dispose of them either. 

Briar gasped. **The last thing he saw was a glass case, glimmering silver on a desk. **Moonstream has one. It's in her office, in the Hub. I saw it, right before I left my body. Raeldro will go there next, won't he? 

It's his last hope, Daja remarked. How do we get there from here?

They saw him move; he was finishing up what he was doing.

We go up, Sandry said. Briar, feel for your _shakkan_._ Feel where it's located. If we can locate it, we can locate Discipline, and we can locate the Hub._

Briar was quiet for a moment. He let his roots stretch out; he felt for its dying self on the windowsill in his room. He could sense it, calling to him, desiring water, food, sunshine. This was strange, being that he had left it in the sun. 

This way, he told them, pointing. Still cloaked together, they went for the surface.

---

Frostpine entered the forge. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and made to put away a few tools that he had left out. He whistled a familiar, homely tune. He noticed that the note he had left for Daja was not there anymore, and he presumed that perhaps she had come by and taken it with her. 

It was then that he saw Daja on the floor, the note crumpled in her hand, her eyes wide open.

---

Frostpine and Kirel were headed towards the Hub, carrying between them the limp form of Daja. Frostpine was hurriedly trying to explain what had happened.

"She was on the floor, I tell you! Just like that!" Frostpine insisted. Suddenly there was a huge rumbling noise. 

"An earthquake," hissed Kirel. His legs trembled as the earth underneath them rumbled dangerously. They heard the crack of a falling tree, some rubble slamming to the earth. The tiles of the winding road beneath their feet buckled up like the plates of the earth themselves. 

There was a scream. Frostpine looked up; the sun had become thick with clouds, and all light vanished with a suddenness that startled the dedicate and his apprentice. Rain, at first soft, tickled Frostpine's bare head. The sensation became less comfortable as the rain become vicious and hail began to fall. 

They reached the Hub with a soaking wet, pitiful Daja. Moonstream was there; two dedicates near her were rushing out of the Hub door, holding a similarly still Briar. She greeted them with a serious face. "So, the end is coming for us," she said in a tight voice. 

"It's not over until it's over," argued Frostpine. "Where are you taking the boy?" 

"To Discipline," remarked a dedicate carrying Briar.  "Dedicate Lark just went over there; she'll take care of them." 

Through the rain they moved, a solemn procession bearing the two young mages. Frostpine winced when a ball of ice struck him on the top of his skull, and Kirel did not appreciate the fact that his white habit soaked through left him quite exposed. Moonstream's stride was purposeful, but the others could tell that she was not herself lacking in fear. 

Lark was there at the gate to meet them. She swung open the door. "I knew that they would all be like this," she said hurriedly. "I found Tris upstairs fifteen minutes ago, looking the same way, all frozen, as though in a trance. I think they've left their bodies." She ushered them into the kitchen; she had made four mats on the floor, using their mattresses, and the table was pushed into the corner of the room with the stool piled on top. Tris was on one of the mats; her eyes were opened and blue-gray, somewhat glazed over. 

Briar and Daja were both put on mats. "And Sandry?" asked Moonstream. "Where is she?"

Lark pulled a letter from her apron full of needles and thread. "This was on the table when I came in," she said. "She went to go meet Raeldro Earthkin at the seawall; I do believe they'd been having a bit of a romance. But that was hours ago. She never came back." 

"I didn't think that Raeldro Earthkin was expected back for another week," protested Frostpine. 

"He wasn't," Moonstream agreed. "But this _is his handwriting." _

"Some very foul play is afoot," Lark said, wringing her hands together. "And I don't want to suspect Raeldro – but, who else does the evidence point to?" 

The door swung open, and Niko stood there, soaking wet and illuminated by a flash of lightning. "Word has it that someone broke into the Unread Script Temple," he told them. "That's what the last messenger bird said. Of course, with this weather, I don't think that there will be any more messenger birds for a while." 

Lark went forward. "Did they say who it was?"

Niko had an emotionless face. "A man with dark hair," he replied. There was a pause. "_Whoever it was broke in and has warded the whole thing so that no one can physically get in or out without being shocked."_

"What do you propose we do?" Moonstream asked. "Something – or someone – very important must be being kept there." 

Niko turned his back to them. "I'm going," he said. 

Lark ran out after him, the rain running across her head and under the collar of her shirt. "Niko, you can't go," she protested. "There have been earthquakes. You'll never make it!" 

Niko did not stop to look at her, but instead he mounted an anxious horse that he had tied to the gate. "I have to try!" he cried over a crash of thunder. "I have seen many things, Lark – but, in one of those visions, I saw Sandry there, dead. I _must_ try." With that he whirled away on his horse and galloped into the fog.

Inside, Kirel asked Moonstream, "What is the Unread Script Temple?"

Moonstream bowed her head. "It is ancient; it is so old that we do not know when it dates back to. It cannot be destroyed. It is also forbidden, for its walls have writings which contain the key to three great powers – eternal life, eternal knowledge, and eternal strength." 

"Immortality," gasped Kirel. Before he could ask another question, the ground rumbled again, and they braced themselves for a second earthquake. 

---

Raeldro found Moonstream's office to be empty. He smiled grimly as he entered the window. _I am so close,_ he thought to himself. He saw it, glittering with the earth's magic, on the desk in the corner of the room. It was there with numerous other things; there were charts with constellations, diagrams of wind patterns, lists of plant types, globes and wind-catching instruments and thermometers. He could reach out and touch it, almost—

He felt something wrap around his leg. He twisted in its grasp; someone was throwing magical seeds on to the floor. They sprouted, gripping on to the tiles. These were truly magic beanstalks, made purely of the earth's own magic. The tendrils clawed out with thorns at Raeldro. Furiously, he kicked them off. 

Who's there? Raeldro asked into the emptiness.

He heard the swishing of fabric. Sandry pulled off the invisibility cloak that had been keeping them hidden in the corner. She dropped it to the floor. Briar put the remainder of his seeds back into his pocket.

I thought I had lost you, remarked Raeldro. It doesn't matter, though. I can lose you now. Angrily, he summoned his power; he felt it collecting in his hand like a ball of needles. He hurled it at them, causing the papers on Moonstream's desk to flutter to the floor. 

Tris tugged a wind from the window. It was wily, afraid of her, unwilling to be tamed. Do you trust me? Tris thought to that piece of wind. You must trust me. He will destroy this earth if you do not cooperate. Coaxed into submission, the wind bent at Tris's will, making that ball of energy blow away from the four. 

Raeldro, even angrier, tried another globe of energy, followed by another. Each time, Tris managed to avoid them by using that piece of wind. Sandry even managed to use a string to capture Raeldro's ball of energy. She shot it back at him like you would do with a slingshot, but he managed to avoid it. 

Shall we throw things at each other all day? Raeldro teased. There is not time for this. The world will explode, soon enough. I left only enough energy in the earth's core to stall for enough time to get back to the temple and perform the spell.

Impatiently, perhaps using more energy than he could afford to, Raeldro summoned power from all around him; it rose as silver from his clothes, a great wall of power, huge and intimidating. It was like the seawall, which nothing could pass through. 

Surrender! There is no way that you can beat me, he shot at them. It was more of a challenge than a threat. Some force rippled over him, huge, tearing at his clothes. 

Sandry rooted through her bag. Out she pulled the thread-circle, lumped four times, imperfect and still perfect. She held it before her like the only barrier that she had against his white wall. 

Is this what you threaten me with? Raeldro asked. A loop of thread?

Sandry thought of what he had done to her. She felt the earth surrender to yet another quake; she felt the Hub itself wobbling weakly as its metals and woods weakened. She thought of his laughing face, how he had said that he didn't love her. She felt fury building up inside of her. 

Briar, Tris, and Daja brought their hands forward, each likewise gripping the thread circle at the appropriate place. 

_This had better work,_ Sandry thought. 

---

Niko flung himself off of his horse. He had reached Unread Script Temple, not far from Winding Circle. Outside of the door, two soldiers and three dedicates stood, trying numerous spells to open the doorway.

"Master Niklaren," one said. He did not even bow; there was not time for formalities. "We cannot get in, not at all."

Niko tied his horse to what looked like a sturdy tree. "The only way you can ward a building this strongly is with blood," he told them. Through the wet brush surrounding the temple, he went to the other side of where the main door was. He could smell the scent of decay. The dedicates followed; the soldiers watched the door. 

He could smell blood; he could see dark drops of it as he walked past the temple walls, though the blood was hard to see with the rain coming down. Niko pushed through a bush, then stepped away. The body of a young girl was lying there, her eyes closed, bound and gagged. The dedicates all went extremely pale; one fled to go vomit. 

"Who is it?" asked one of the other dedicates. 

Niko could not tell how he knew. "Her name is Lilith," he said. 

"Woodberry's daughter?" the second dedicate gasped. "I thought she was – dying, alone, off at Lightsbridge." 

"Looks as though someone kidnapped her and killed her," Niko said. "And then they used her blood to ward the temple."

"That's disgusting," the first dedicate said. 

"It makes sense, though. She had traces of the earth's magic in her; that would mean that her blood is extremely powerful and strong, perfect to use to ward a building," Niko remarked. "But you're right. It is disgusting." One of the dedicates offered his coat to put over the body. 

  
"What now?" asked the second dedicate. 

Niko sighed. "We have to un-ward the temple in order to get in, I think. This would mean picking up the circle of blood made around it," he told them. 

"And how are we supposed to do that?" asked the first dedicate. 

"Not easily," he said. 

---

Back at Winding Circle, chaos had broken loose. Several cottages had collapsed. Trees were falling, crashing, hitting people and buildings as they fell. Despite the rain, a fire had started in one of the forges; Frostpine desperately hoped that it was not his own. The Hub loomed, tall and foreboding, threatening to fall. 

Lark was a wreck. She had tried multiple times to awaken the three young mages, but nothing had come to any use. Frostpine had made an attempt to console her crying, but it hadn't worked, and the smith-mage had now given up completely. 

Rosethorn, soaked to the bone, pushed open the door. "Where are my herbs?" she screeched. The look on her face was of complete terror and worry. "Perhaps they'll help wake these three up." 

"They won't!" Lark insisted. "I've tried everything. Honestly, Rosie! The world is falling down around them and they _still_ won't wake up. Your herbs are not going to do the trick!" It was too late, though; Rosethorn was already outside, sloshing around in her drowning garden.

She came back several minutes later, shoving plants under the noses of all three – first Daja, then Tris, then Briar. The herbs were strong-smelling things; they smelled so badly that Lark could pick up the scent of them halfway across the room. The three teenagers didn't even budge. 

"C'mon, boy," whispered Rosethorn, dripping water on to the already drenched young man. Her hands shook as she held a piney plant up to his nose. "Wake up! Wake up, please!" She began to cry. 

---

Niko and his two helper dedicates had finally managed to clear all the blood from the ground surrounding the Unread Script Temple. Niko had made a complicated charm using pieces of Lilith's hair and blood from the corpse in order to pick up all the blood on a piece of cloth. It was a gruesome, sickening process, but it did not sicken Niko as much as the thought of Sandry being hurt did. 

Having lifted the ward, it was not difficult to open the door. 

Niko and the two dedicates entered the temple. The candles were burning low inside of it. Sandry was there, tied to a bench; blood pooled around her, bleeding from her hands. 

"Gods!" Niko gasped. He pulled a knife from his pocket, trying to cut the ropes that bound her. The knife grew hot and melted. Furious at himself for not having thought of that, he used his power and _blasted_ through the ropes. Her hands came free. He did the same to her ankles and nearly set the bench on fire in the process. 

He saw Raeldro, too, slumped on the floor. The dedicates went to pick up the mage, but Niko interrupted, saying, "Leave him."

"But what if he's injured?" asked the second dedicate.

"Are you a fool?" Niko charged. "Who else but Raeldro Earthkin could have broken into this place? It had ageless spells upon it!" 

They exited the temple and went back into the rain. He put Sandry over his horse as gently as he could, tying her to the saddle upright. "Guards," he said, calling to the soldiers. "Keep watch, and let no one into the temple. If anyone requests entrance, refer them to me." 

"And us?" asked the two dedicates. The third had returned from vomiting and also looked at Niko with watchful eyes as the mage untied his horse.

"Stay here, and fight off anyone who tries to enter," he said. Niko swung up behind Sandry on the saddle, holding her against his chest. He put a finger on her neck; her pulse was still there. He spurred his horse into a gallop, following the path that lead to the Hub, which pointed its metallic finger at the sky.

---

Raeldro watched the four, unsuspecting. 

There was a great deal of murmuring between the four. They knew what they had to do. They felt for their elements, surrounding them; they probed into what remained of the earth's core, feeling the earth's magic pulse there, undying.

Tris felt for the winds. She felt the tides, crashing up against the seawall, powerful, unable to be captured. I will not capture you, nor will I tame you, she told them. But I will help you, if you let me. If you fight for me – you'll be fighting for yourself, for your own existence. She called out to the clouds, to the rain that poured and the lightning that clapped. She tugged to it, urging it, begging it with a plea. She felt it bend to her, as the little wind had; she felt it give and understand. She felt it give itself. 

From her part of the thread-circle, a soft blue glow began to come into being. 

Sandry thought of threads; she thought of the plants that they came from, of the clothes they were made into. She thought of the hay they had put onto the roof. She thought of the thread-circle itself that she held, lumpy in all the right places. Weave yourselves together for me, one last time, she pleaded. Together, fibers become strong, as do people, as do all the parts of nature together. You must help me. She felt as though a puzzle had clicked inside of her head. She felt as though she had started a weave. 

Her section of the thread-circle glowed golden. 

Daja felt metals. She felt them in the earth, in the houses, in the Hub itself. She felt them within herself even, in her blood and bodily fluids. Metals were vital, and she knew that they would be vital in this battle. I can only bend you so far; you must bend yourselves, as well, metals and ores. Do you want to be bent by Raeldro? He wants to bend you to your destruction! Or do you want me to bend you? I will set you free. She heard the creaking of Hajra's gates opening, her very own doors.

The lump of the thread-circle that was Daja began to take on a red-brown hue. 

Briar felt plants all around him. He felt their roots in the earth, touching the clouds with endless leaves. He saw his _shakkan in his room, quiet. He felt the presence of growth everywhere. This could be the last chance you have to grow. This could be the last hurrah, Briar thought to them. But if you push for me, I'll push back for you. I'll try and push you through. He felt everything stretching, loosening, straining for him, towards a cloudy sky. _

The final section of the thread-circle took on a pine green hue. 

Who do you think you are, Raeldro? You may think you have mastered the earth, but it will not let you, they thought as one. It was strange, for they had not planned it; it was as though they were one for a split second in time. 

Raeldro's wall of white moved forward like a giant hand. They protested, saying, 

I seal my spell with blood  
I seal my spell with a part of me  
I seal my spell with myself  
I seal myself.

There was blood on their hands, a magical sort of blood, although they felt nothing. It leaked from their hands into that thread circle.

It was then that the thread circle seemed to explode in color, as though their blood had activated something. Millions of colors, different hues, different saturations, spread from it. There were images in it; there were plants, and birds, and whales, and people, and fire, and flowers, and metals, and giant weavings waving in the wind in the midst of those colors. They exploded against his wall, enveloping the room like their very own rainbow. Magic flowed through them, prophets of their time. 

Raeldro screamed, I will be a god! Somehow, he fumbled with the sap case that he had picked up off of Moonstream's desk. 

The earth's magic seemed to sense the danger. Raeldro's wall shattered into what looked like a million pieces of glass, bits of it all over the floor. It bowled Raeldro over, knocking him against the wall of the room. The sap case fell to the ground with a clatter, also breaking. The sap oozed over his hands, but it was too late. That power that had been stored there was gone, freed; it had already been absorbed back into the earth's core. 

No, Raeldro cried, desperately. His chances for immortality were ended. His eyes rolled, wild, furious, helpless; his hands were all over his face, sap left there in amber globs. But if I do not get to live forever, you will not get to live at all! He yanked the elixir vial from his pocket and held it up just as the blast of their magics hit it. They did not know exactly what was in that elixir, but they were sure that Raeldro knew what he was doing.

The moment that their magics hit the vial, everything seemed to pause. Then, there was a great deal of fire, charcoal, explosion all over the room – there was a split second of pure blackness before there was nothing at all. 

---

Niko arrived at Winding Circle. He was nearing Discipline. Sandry was still breathing, which gave him a great deal of hope for her. The thundering of his horse's hooves reminded him to keep rhythm to his own breathing. Water from the rain whipped around his face, stinging his eyes, making him half-blind.

He felt wetness on his hands. He looked down, briefly. Niko was shocked to note that Sandry's hands had just sprouted new cuts that had not been there before. Had she cut herself on something on the ride? It was impossible.

Baffled, he skidded up to Discipline, dismounting from his horse. Lark ran out to him. "The strangest thing just happened, Niko!" she cried. "The three in here all just started bleeding from their hands, from cuts that weren't there before. It was as though an invisible knife had cut them--"

She was about to finish when her eyes widened. There was a loud, thundering boom sound. Niko looked behind him. There was a huge explosion at the top of the Hub; the whole top floor was completely gone. Fire sprouted to unimaginable heights from the top of it. The clock was missing a large chunk, which slammed into the ground several stories down, crushing a cottage and several people. The long hand of the large clock, a big piece of metal, careened into the ground as well, falling flat on its side and bouncing twice. 

"Oh my gods," Niko murmured, too shocked to raise his voice. Rosethorn, Kirel, and Frostpine, too, came outside upon hearing the dreadful sounds, and their jaws dropped completely.

"Niko!" Lark screamed, taking Sandry from his horse. "Niko, she's dead – she's not breathing! Niko! Niko!" It was true. She was no longer breathing, and her heart had stilled. Rosethorn, Kirel, and Frostpine rushed inside to check on the others.

Niko carried her inside and laid her on the bed. Rosethorn and Frostpine looked up at Niko and Lark with weary eyes. "None of them are breathing now," Frostpine said in a quiet voice amidst the screaming outside. "They were a minute ago--"

Lark buried her face in her hands, hysterical. Rosethorn was shaking badly, frozen in place. Frostpine watched Kirel as he knelt solemnly next to Daja's mat. 

Niko's eyes lifted after he set down Sandry. There were tears in them, but then he blinked. "The sun has come out," he said suddenly, seeing a glimmer of light between the shutters. He went to the window and flung them open.

Everybody gasped. 


	10. Chapter 9

She heard a voice inside her head. You have given me life. Thus, I give your life back to you.

Then, her head was empty.

There was a light. It was a bright, white light, shining in her eyes. _Is this the afterlife? _Sandry thought to herself. She had always thought that dying was like going towards a light. It was blinding, stinging; she tried to shield herself from the offensive thing in her eyes, but her limbs felt like dead weight. _I never thought the afterlife would be so bright. _

Her eyes fluttered for a moment. The light was still there, but in front of her was a plane of white, of blankness. She stared at it for a moment, wondering what the significance of it might be. Was she supposed to go through it? She went to walk, but Sandry then realized she was not standing. She was lying down; she must be looking at a ceiling.

It was a very familiar ceiling, truth to be told. Had she seen it before? Sandry puzzled over this. It took her a few seconds to realize that she could turn her head; the movement made her sight swim a bit, and her forehead began to pound. She saw a cabinet; it was wooden. She figured that she was in a room.

_The room!_ Sandry thought excitedly. There was a table, and there were two benches pushed into the corner. Her heart thundered upon recognition of the cabinets, the walls, the floors, the windows, the trinkets on the counter. She was at Discipline. 

Excited to realize that she was not, in fact, dead, she made to sit up. Then, she decided against it. Her stomach reacted violently, and she laid back down with a resounding grunt. 

"You're awake," said a low voice. 

Sandry glanced to the side and saw the dark-skinned Trader sitting up beside her on a mattress. The young woman's clothes were rumpled, but she looked very happy. 

"Daja!" Sandry said. She was surprised to note that her voice was hoarse. 

Behind Daja, Tris and Briar were sitting up in their beds, groggy. "Oh, Tris! Your hair looks quite wild," Sandry laughed all over her face. Indeed, the weather mage's hair stood on end, its ringlets frizzled. 

"I am not concerned about my hair," retorted Tris with a small smirk. "I am concerned about my glasses." Briar had managed to find them somehow, and he handed them to Tris, who put them onto her face clumsily. 

Sandry watched their antics, amused, thoughtless. She looked down at her dress; it was stained with blood all over the front.  It was then that a million things struck Sandry at once. She remembered everything – the temple with its high ceilings and dark walls, candles everywhere, Raeldro cloaked in black holding that opal, her blood all over his hands, the earth's core gone as small as a songbird, the colors of their combined magics, fire sprouting from the Hub—

"What happened?" Sandry asked slowly, cautiously. "We -- we can't _possibly_ be alive! This must be some kind of a dream, some sort of a twisted joke – the Hub _exploded_! All I remember was a great deal of flames before this. How _could _we possibly be here?" Sandry, growing hysterical, went to sit up. She steadied herself and gave herself a moment of silence before she summoned the strength to stand. 

She did not have that strength. Her legs wobbled under her, and she fell back onto the softness of her mattress. 

"Relax," Daja said consolingly. "We have to be alive. I feel too awful, too sick, too in pain to be dead." 

Sandry fidgeted, shaking her loose hair. She noted that her hands were both bandaged heavily. "I have to get up and find out what's happened. I _won't_ settle down until I know. Why do I have these huge bandages on both my hands? Why isn't the earth destroyed? Why wasn't _I_ destroyed? Where are Niko, and Lark, and Rosethorn, and Moonstream, and Crane, and Frostpine? Why aren't there--?" She made to stand up again, tears falling from her face.

"I already tried that," warned Briar. But it was too late. Sandry came tumbling down.

Sandry's heart raced. All she could think about was that great explosion, and the possibility that people she loved had died, and the fact that Raeldro had used her – so cruelly used her – for months on end. Sandry was out of breath and out of tears. She gave out a soundless scream that sounded like a strained cough, because she had no air left to make noise. Daja threw her arms around Sandry and pulled the noble against her chest hard, rocking back and forth. 

Daja shushed her, holding her sobbing friend tightly. Tris and Briar, too, came to her side, crawling, wrapping their arms around their friends and giving her the comfort of their presence, for it was all that they could give. What Raeldro had done touched Sandry most of all, because though he had endangered all their lives and the lives of all their friends, he had endangered much more of that in Sandry. No one could give back what Raeldro had taken from her – her love, her trust, her faith, her spirit. 

The door pushed open, and they looked up, still attached, but startled. Even Sandry managed to look up, though the tears still ran down her face. It was Lark at the door, looking grimmer than they had ever seen her. Her habit was streaked with dirt, blood, sweat, grass; her eyes were wide. There was a breath of silence, a tick of the clock in emptiness.

"You're -- awake," she said softly, and then she burst into tears. 

Niko was instantly in the room behind her, his cape out behind him in brilliant colors, even still. "Calm yourself, Lark," he said coolly, taking her hands in his. "They're alright now. There's no need for all this crying." Lark was trembling fretfully, the wrinkles on her face going deep.

Niko looked up to the startled young man and women huddled on the bed. He gave them a weak smile; though glad to see him smile, weakness was not a trait that they ever liked to see in Niko. "But – it _is_ good to see you all well again," he murmured. They smiled at him through their tears. 

"Would you all like something to eat?" Lark asked them, coming to kneel near the mattresses. Her eyes glimmered. "You must be starved to death--" She paused. "I mean, you must be hungry, after all this."

Tris sniffled. "My stomach's too upset to handle anything," she said in a shaky voice. The others nodded in agreement. 

"Tea," Lark responded immediately, standing, as though to get her mind off of disturbing thoughts. She rushed away from them in a busy green blur.

Niko smiled. "I will have to pester you with questions – but, later. You need your rest now," he said.

"No," Daja protested. "I mean – we really want to know what's happened." 

Niko pulled out a bench from the corner of the room, and he seated himself on it gracefully. It was amazing that he still managed such a degree of elegance, even after eight years of knowing them. "Perhaps you ought to explain what you know to us, and we can fill you in on the rest of what has happened," Niko said. 

The four, huddled together, did not know where to start. Daja nudged Sandry. "You know best," she said encouragingly. "You were there."

Sandry looked at her friend, pleading with her eyes to not make her go through this. But Daja squeezed her around the shoulder and nodded encouragingly. Sandry sighed depressingly. 

"Raeldro told me to meet him at the seawall at noon. When I got there, I fell asleep. He had put me under a sleeping spell, I presume, though I don't exactly know. Then he kidnapped me--" She paused to breathe and compose herself; her voice had grown shaky. 

"He took me to a great, large temple, decorated in tan and black. He left me tied to a bench there. When I woke, he told me everything. He had done everything, Niko. He framed Woodberry. He made you sick. He killed Gazelle and stole the opal. How could I not have known, having been closest to him? How could I not have _guessed?_" Sandry, shaking, stopped, gripping Daja's bandaged hand so hard that it began to bleed again.

"You cannot blame yourself, Sandry," interrupted Niko. "His rooms were searched. In it, they found various stations set up with various spells. One of them had numerous carved wax figurines, all wrapped up in a magical net. The people they represented were thus unable to see of his plots. You were one of them; in fact, you four, myself, Lark, several dedicates from here, Moonstream, and many others were figurines found in the net. It's not your fault that you didn't see; he had you _spelled _to not see."

Sandry nodded; this fact did make her feel a great deal better, but she felt the weight of guilt in the pit of her stomach still. The noble woman continued, cautiously. "Raeldro demanded that I give him my power, and that I link him to the earth. He was getting impatient – he said he needed our power, because we had links to the earth. I told him no, and he – he said he had never loved me, and it was all a plot to get close to me, so he could do this, and try to steal my power, and--" Now she was rambling, furiously, passionately, tears falling from her face. 

Daja put an arm around Sandry. "He wanted to make himself into a god!" gasped Sandry. "He used me so he could make himself into a god! He didn't care what he destroyed in order to make himself a god – whether it was the earth, or me, or the lives of others – he didn't care! He didn't care about anything!" Sandry cried, yanking at her hair because she was so furious. 

Lark thrust some tea into Sandry's hands. The young woman took it, surprised and shaky. Daja steadied her as she took a sip of it.  "He's dead, isn't he?" Sandry asked suddenly. "I mean – he _couldn't_ have lived." 

"Of course he's dead," Daja said in a quiet voice. "It's better that way." 

Sandry nodded dumbly, tears in her eyes even still. She met the gazes of Niko and Lark and gave a half-hearted smile. "I was – well, rather attached to him." It was a huge understatement. She gave a weak shrug. "Well, I _was,_ before this. Now – now, I just don't really know." 

Lark came over to her and put an arm around her. "Keep drinking that tea, darling," she whispered. "He can't hurt you again, not now." 

This was a sort of consolation to Sandry. _He can't make me happy again, either,_ she reminded herself, but that thought went away. She knew she had to discard him, all his memories, all the emotions he brought. Sandry knew that she would have to recuperate, somehow. 

Sandry looked at Daja, unable to speak. The Trader took the hint.

"He had the opal," said Daja, taking over. "But even before that, he had opal rings – if you found his body, you must have found them on him. He had used the spells written on the temple walls to make an elixir for immortality. What he had to do to make himself immortal was to break the opals into the elixir and drink it. But he didn't have enough power yet. He needed all of the earth's core." 

Daja rubbed Sandry's back in a consoling manner. "But he knew that if he drained from the earth's core, he would never have time to resurface to the temple, recite the chant, add the opals, and drink the elixir. He needed Sandry's link – our link – to the earth in order to directly gain the earth's power. Using that link would have given him just enough time. He needed Sandry's blood to make that connection to the earth's core." 

"And then something very odd happened," admitted Tris. "I've never heard of anything of the sort, even in all my studies. All of the sudden, all this information came to my head – I could _see_ everything in the temple through Sandry's eyes. I suddenly knew everything that Raeldro had told Sandry. And then – I felt myself being _pulled_ from my body. It was very strange."

"We were suddenly in the temple, in our magical bodies. I don't know how," Briar told Niko and Lark. 

Niko shook his head. "Truthfully, I don't know how, either. But Sandry has a tendency to perform spells she knows nothing about just perfectly," he told them, making a reference to the mistaken making of the thread circle itself.

Sandry, feeling a great deal better, gave Niko a weak smile. "I did manage to grab the thread circle, somehow."

Briar continued, "When we had gotten there, Raeldro had gotten his hands on Sandry's blood, but Daja – well, she made the iron in Sandry's blood go hot, and it burned Raeldro and evaporated the blood." 

"Sandry came out her body, too," Daja told them. "But it was too late. Raeldro had, through her blood, taken just enough energy to destabilize the earth. He took his opal and his elixir, and he fled. We followed him down to the earth's core. He took almost enough energy, through the opals on his rings, to complete the spell, but we knew he had not taken enough to complete what he needed to do. It was then that Briar remembered having seen the sap case in Moonstream's office, with just a bit of energy. We knew that Raeldro would need that to complete his spell." 

"He had left enough energy in the earth's core so that it wouldn't destruct immediately, then," Niko suggested. "He had left enough to buy himself some time." 

"Exactly," Tris remarked. "We met him there, and we fought him. We used the thread circle, charmed the earth's magic, called it – we needed it. And we even said the spell to seal it with blood, and started to bleed."

"Ah!" Niko said. "Let me take this moment to explain why your hands are bandaged. I suppose that this happened at the same time when you said the spell. Your hands all simply sprouted wounds, slices on your hands."

"We didn't use knives?" Tris asked. 

"We didn't _have _knives on us," Briar reminded her. "Well, except for me."

Tris rolled her eyes and continued the story. "All the magic came out of the thread circle, hit on Raeldro's wall of magic. He knocked down the sap case – he knew that his cause was ruined, but he wanted us to die. He threw the elixir on the floor." 

"Then there was blackness, a great deal of fire. Then – nothing," Sandry remarked quietly. There was a long sigh of silence.

"Niko, why aren't we dead?" asked Briar suddenly. "How could we have survived that?" 

Niko's face turned stone-like. The look on his face and his own hesitation sent shivers down their spines. "You didn't," he answered. Lark flinched visibly.

Sandry's heart leapt into her throat. "Niko – but we _aren't _dead. Are we?" 

Niko leaned back. "I saw the top of the Hub go up in flames," he answered her. "I arrived at Discipline, having gotten Sandry from the temple, just in time to see it happen. The clock burst open from within. Pieces thundered to the ground. And, as I saw it happen your heart stopped, Sandry. We ran inside; the rest of you we had put onto cots, having found your bodies in assorted places. You all lacked heartbeats as well. You were all dead." 

His words echoed. Lone tears fell down solemn, grave faces.

Lark, sitting next to him, looked fretful. "You all looked terrible," she murmured. The four looked at each other nervously. 

Niko went on to say, "But then – something very strange happened. Silver started to flow out of the earth, out of the tiles on the ground. We felt the earth begin to tremble underneath our feet. Your bodies started to glow a multitude of colors, like the earth's core – your hearts began to beat again. It was as though – almost as if the earth itself had surrendered its power to you."

Something hit Sandry; she recalled the voice that had called to her. You have given me life. Thus, I give your life back to you. Her voice was hardly a whisper. "The voice - I heard it in my sleep. It was like a great rumbling." She instantly knew, vaguely recalling soft warmth, inhaling…  

There was a great silence between them all. The four young mages, suddenly feeling very old, looked at each other, their glances knowing. Niko's look was questioning, lingering on being doubtful; and, yet, even he could not deny what he had seen. He had seen their bodies, rising into the air, suspended by a force unknown. He had fallen down at the sound that had rang in his head, the sound like screaming and surrender, a voice that had a whisper like a tempest. He had felt pulsing in their bodies. 

"Why would it do that?" asked Tris breathlessly. 

Niko stood quietly but with a strong sense of pride in his eyes. He went to the window, his cloak sweeping out behind him. "This is why," he said, and he flung the shutters open wide.

Sunlight, brighter than they had seen it in months and months, streamed in through the window. Blinded, the four shielded their faces from the white light. But, between that brightness, there were twinges of green. 

"Oh, let me see," Sandry gasped. Lark and Niko helped the four on their weak feet to the window. 

Everything was new, fresh, and green. The sky was a brilliant blue and the trees bloomed with buds and spring blossoms. The air smelled of growth, of fertile soil. The winds teased them with a trace of salt at their noses. Flowers of many colors radiated all along the winding road; Briar was amazed to see Rosethorn's garden bursting with vitality. Daja and Tris inhaled the salt of the sea at once, filling their chests gratefully. Lark drew some threads from her pocket and rolled them together. They stuck, rather than flying apart.

"It's back," Sandry said with a whisper. "Everything is back." 

"After the explosion, everything started to grow again, all at once. There were trees, pushing from the earth, and the sky cleared in a matter of seconds. Everything bad that had happened was so quickly undone," Niko told them, holding a shaky Tris. His eyes fell on each of their weary faces. 

They realized, startled, that his eyes brimmed with tears. This frightened them more deeply than anything they had ever seen. They knew not if Niko's expression was fear or shock, awe or pride. "If you had not followed Raeldro – if you had given up – we all know what would have happened. The destruction that lingers now is a fragment of what could have been." He motioned to the window and turned his face to the afternoon sun, orange in all its glory. "It is because of you that we are all here today. You are responsible for this, for everything."

Niko turned back to them.  "There are not words to thank you for having made the ultimate sacrifice. You died for your planet, for your love for it. Raeldro may have wanted to make himself a god, an immortal. But his name will be remembered with nothing but hate and scorn. You four, however--" He paused and took a deep breath, sighing in relief. 

"You will be more immortal, more gladly remembered for eons to come, than anyone else on this planet. You have made yourselves eternal in name, in legend, in example. _That_ is true immortality." A tear fell, alone at the corner of his nose, still hidden. "You are… beyond words," he said in a rushed whisper. 

No one knew what to say.

---

It took many days for them to recover. Their hands, they knew, would be forever scarred by some magic that they did not know. That was alright, though, even though the scars would serve as painful reminders of all that had happened. It was a week before they could walk on their own, two weeks before they felt strong enough to venture out of the house to simply wander through Rosethorn's flourishing garden. 

Rosethorn herself came over to give the four salve for their hands; Briar knew, though, that this was only an excuse for her to see her favorite four mages. Lark, feeling drawn to stay in the household, remained for a few weeks in her old home of Discipline, making her old bed warm once again. Frostpine and Kirel came after a few days as well. Frostpine wept and laughed and teased incessantly when Daja and Kirel felt obliged to share a kiss. Sandry watched them, quite happy for their sake.

Raeldro would never come. 

The destruction that had been wrought, they came to find, was interminable. The deaths alone in Winding Circle were mind-boggling; there was no toll for the deaths across the planet. The number was too high to count. It seemed that, out of luck and due to the positioning of the earth's tectonic plates, Winding Circle and Emelan had been very lucky in the grand scheme of things. In other places, great chasms had formed in the ground, enveloping entire rural communities in the north. One of the Stepping Stone Islands, a very small one, had completely sunken underwater, killing all of its inhabitants. Daja was relieved to hear, however, that Hajra's doors had managed to hold up.

Several buildings in the temple city had collapsed, set afire, or been otherwise destroyed. The Hub itself looked as though an entire army had ripped through it. The four young mages felt quite sorry for this, but they had to remind themselves that they were not the ones who threw the elixir and caused the explosion. It was comforting to know that someday soon, that grand clock would be rebuilt. 

The four knew that it would be years before all that had been lost could be rebuilt; they knew, also, that lives would not ever be replaced. And, regardless of that looming hopelessness that could have taken root in them, they refused to admit defeat. Raeldro had not won. They vowed to start making salves and bandages or do whatever work was needed once they were restored to health once more. 

---

It had been a month since the Great Disaster, as it came to be known in later years. Briar was in Rosethorn's workshop, reading labels by candlelight, trying to see what herbs might do best for the salves to be sent to all the hospitals nearby. He sorted them by the ailment they would cure or ease – infection, pain, bleeding. He brought the candle closer to his face; the darkness was stifling almost. On the table there sat also his treasured _shakkan__,_ which he had been feeding with special herbs to continue its amazing growth in the past few weeks. He had let it keep one bud – and only one. 

"Need help?" asked a voice. Briar jumped, nearly knocking over a jar of rosemary. Tris stood by the doorframe, shadows deep in her sleeping gown, her freckles illuminated. Her glasses gleamed black around her eyes.

"I'm sorry I startled you," she said apologetically, advancing towards him.

"It's not your fault. I'm still jumpy," he told her. 

"As am I," Tris replied. She leaned over his shoulder. "Rosemary," she read aloud. "Is that your handwriting on the jar? It's very neat." 

"I was taught by the best," responded Briar, flashing her a smile. 

Tris gave him a pleased smile in return, half-flattered, half-embarrassed. Her hands wound their way around and over his shoulders. "You've got to be half-insane to be working at this hour," Tris said in mock scorn. "It really can wait until morning – until a far more decent time." 

He kissed her fingertip. "I'll get more done this way," Briar retorted. "I won't be offended if you go to sleep, though." 

She shook her head and sat down next to him. "I'll stay with you," she said. "I'm – glad to be here. You know," she added quietly, giving him a small glance. He shared the look with her. Briar and Tris knew that there was nothing that they could say, nothing that they could do to truly express everything that had happened to them in the past months. There was nothing that could summarize it all. 

Tris was not sure if there was a way to express her gratefulness to him. She was so amazed by him. To her, he was the essence of playfulness mixed with strength. He was the other half of her; she saw herself reflected in him. They were alienated once, outcasts; home they had found within the other. How could she express this for real after this time of terror? Why had she not said it before with more than kisses on the thatching? Was there another way that she could show him the way he filled her on so many levels? 

Tris rested her head on his shoulder, letting a hand run along the top of his forearm.  "Briar?" she said in a voice that was hardly above a whisper. 

"Yes?" He was trying to open the jar of rosemary. 

She took it from him, unscrewing it with ease and making a slight popping noise. The tension in her built. "Briar, how can I show – how can I express how good it feels – how good _everything_ is? What do I do with myself now? I feel – a need. I feel a need to spend myself for something – for someone, maybe. Do you know what I'm saying?" 

"I don't know if I do," he said, turning to face her, looking into her cloudy eyes. 

"I need – I feel, somehow, that everything has changed," she told him. Tris sighed and laced her fingers through his. "It's as though nothing can be trivial anymore. There is not room to pause in a lifetime… what if I had died and stayed that way? What if I never had the chance to really live a full life?" She paused. "What if I lost you?" 

"What are you trying to say, Coppercurls?" Briar asked her affectionately. 

She looked away, staring into that burning candle flame that flickered as its wick burned, as her own wick burned, as her eyes blazed with inward hurricanes.  "You're one of the most wonderful people," she said quietly. "I just wanted you to know – you mean worlds upon worlds to me. You make a _difference_ to me." She looked up at him. "It's hard to say it all." 

Briar nodded and understood, feeling his heart sink back into himself, secured, contented, and somehow fiery. "I know what you mean," he told her. "C'mere." He took her into his arms, kissing her forehead. 

He realized that she was crying. "It's just so hard to _say_," she sobbed into his shirt, her hands spread over the terrain of his back. "What if you never knew how much--" She stifled a sniffle. "Oh, I mean it. I mean it." 

Another glow came from the doorframe. Sandry, grasping her light crystal, which happened to be fading, stood there; Daja was cast into relief behind her. "Are you alright?" asked Daja softly. 

Tris sat up solemnly, attempting to wipe her eyes. "I've never been better," she responded, cracking a smile. The façade crumbled, though, and she broke down to tears again; three sets of arms folded around her, followed by comforting whispers, followed by jokes to cheer her up. 

"Don't cry," Daja assured her. "Merchant girls have stronger chins that that." This, admittedly, did surprise a chuckle from Tris. Daja went on to say, "It's all over, and we're all here now. We're safe now. No one's going anywhere."

Her head was bowed as though in prayer as the bodies covered her in sweet, tender, friendly pats and hugs. Her hair fell into her eyes. Briar was a world all to himself, a world that Tris dwelt in, the sky under which she dreamt, upon which she floated. I love you, she thought to Briar with firmness in her voice. I love you. His green eyes rose to meet hers, and every puzzle piece clicked into place. 

---

Sandry, for all the comforting words she gave out, spend a great deal of time alone. She often sat in her room, sewing to keep herself busy, complaining of being too weak to go out still. Granted, she had gone through far worse an ordeal physically – her hands were the worst of all of theirs – but her three best friends began to suspect that she was bailing out on them for a very specific reason. 

Sewing did not require her to think of Raeldro. It was so tedious a task that it required a great deal of her concentration, so much that she could not think on him. Of course, then she sometimes ended up thinking about not thinking about him. This frustrated Sandry deeply, and then she would borrow a horse from the stables to go ride to the site of the Unread Script Temple. 

As she rode, she often cried. She would sob and let the horse follow the dusty path; it knew the way quite well after so many trips. Sandry would think of the betrayal of Raeldro, of his inconsistency, and also of his sweet manners, his hazel eyes, his persuasive address. She remembered the taste of him, the way his lips had first brushed hers with such faux sweetness. Sandry recalled the sound of his voice, a melody like a siren that had nearly lured her to her death. Still, looking back on everything, she came to the realization that he had never once said he loved her. He had been a very sly fox, indeed. She would credit him with being very good at all he did, whether it be scheming, lying, acting, or going completely insane. 

Always, when she arrived at the site, she was amazed. Somehow, after all that had happened, the Unread Script Temple had collapsed. No one knew why, and it would probably remain a secret forever. There were two monuments there; one was a beautiful sculpture of a young girl. It resembled the girl in all aspects. The sculpture had been recently dedicated to Lilith, daughter of Woodberry, a victim, exonerated by the gods. Next to that monument stood another, black and marble stone, nothing more than a straight, stocky pillar with no decoration. It read:

_Here lies Raeldro Earthkin,_

_Charged with genocide and _

_Conspiracy, insanity and inhumanity.___

_May his name be remembered forever,_

_Not as one to be glorified,_

_But as one to be defamed._

There was nothing more than that; not his age, or his appearance, or even any details of his crime. Sandry thought it ironic that he would achieve his immortality through a black pillar on the ruins on an ancient temple. Whenever she looked at the pillar that stood, it made her forget the look of his face a little more, distracting her with the concept of shadows and that thick, dark robe he had worn at the end of it all. His features blurred in her mind.

Every time Sandry went, she lit a candle for him at the base of that pillar. Then she would ride home. 

It was one of those afternoons, with the sun shining and darkness still lingering like alcohol in her blood. Sandry prepared to go for another one of these excursions. She put a black veil over her head, letting it fall into her eyes. She turned towards the door and saw Daja leaning there with sadness in her eyes. 

"Going again?" Daja asked quietly. 

Sandry nodded. "I won't be long," she said in an assuring manner. She advanced towards the doorframe.

Daja placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't go," she whispered. "It's only making it harder for you. Can't you see that?"

Sandry's eyes fell heavily to the floor. "You don't understand, Daja," she said. "I wouldn't _want _you to understand, simply so you don't have to know such – defeat. I loved him. I loved him so much. I can't just get over that so easily. How can I learn to love again, to trust again? Maybe it's not doing me any good to go there, to see that black pillar rising up from the rubble. But I feel like I need to go." 

Daja watched her talk and stood a moment in silence. "I never would take you away from your mourning, _saati__._ I wouldn't dare to," she replied with a steady face. "But why must you run from the people that love you in order to heal your pain? Tris, Briar, myself – we are not the Raeldros of the world. We will not betray your confidence. We cannot bring him back or make him love you, but we can love you still, in our own way." 

Sandry gave a quivering nod. She held up her wrist, looking at the charm that dangled there. "I can't let go, still, even with you," Sandry told her in a warning sort of way. "You can't make me forget." 

"No," Daja said. "We cannot forget. If we forget, what will we have to learn from? You can grieve still." She held up her left hand; around her wrist, she wore a red band, the Trader sign for death and mourning. "I'll support you in that," she added. "But, come, my Duchess. Take off your black headdress, and put away your black gloves. Remember the past when you dive into the future, which you have made yourself." 

Sandry sighed deeply. She was somewhat frustrated. "Just give me time, Daja. Please." Her voice was on the verge of begging.

The Trader girl, unable to understand fully, yet accepting of her friend's wishes, nodded. "I'll be outside," she said. "It really is a lovely day, though, to stand in the sun without your face hidden." With that, she departed. 

Sandry continued through her room, gathering a few things to put into a black silk pouch – the thread-circle, her fading light crystal, a smaller pouch with a needle and thread, smelling salts, a small kerchief, and a small candle with a match. _For Raeldro,_ she thought. She sat on her bed, holding that small silken pouch in her shaking hands, and burst into tears. 

_What am I doing?_ Sandry asked herself, dumping out everything onto her covers and snatching at the kerchief hurriedly. She dabbed her eyes. _Why do I feel cold, like the inside of the shell, as though I'm in the dark all over again? Why do I refuse to leave my inner place? _

She left the pouch and climbed the stairs to the roof. As her head peeked out of the house, a wind teased at her veil, and her tears felt a great deal drier. The sun was hot and yellow on the crisp thatching, and she seated herself on it with grace and elegance in the usual Sandry fashion. 

Out in the distance, she saw houses ravaged and demolished, the sick and injured being taken away on cots, and the hole ripped through the top of the Hub. It made her shudder to see that. All she could remember was the disgusted look on Raeldro's face when he threw down that elixir, the sound of glass shattering – had he seen her last? In whatever afterlife there was for him, would he remember her, loving him and bringing him to his knees?

And, yet, within the glorious city of Winding Circle, she saw life coming back. Houses were being reconstructed. People were getting better. The earth itself was as vibrant as Sandry had ever seen it, and people's spirits seemed to be lifted simply with the knowledge of that fact. The sky seemed to stretch beyond infinity, everlasting, without an end. Even in the midst of chaos, of pain, of disaster such as this, there was hope. There was joy. There was a sense of faith in the ability of mankind to renew itself as the planet itself had. 

Could Sandry, then, reconstruct her own self? 

In the yard, she saw Tris, Briar and Daja. Tris and Briar were sweetly holding hands, periodically letting go so that Briar could bend down and sift through the dirt of the garden. Daja smiled, rolled up her sleeves, spread her dark smith arms to the sun. Tris kicked dirt around, fanned herself, fidgeted with her hair, laughed with a happiness that she did not often exhibit. 

Sandry watched them and smiled. There was, in truth, nothing better to see them like that, even after the events of the last few months. Like everything around them, the circle of the four was growing anew. In the midst of the crumbling of the world, or at least its near-crumbling, they had remained steadfast, true to one another. The circle was stronger than ever before, and they would continue to strengthen for years and years to come. They would always be there for her, for each other. And Sandry knew she would gladly return the favor. 

Sandry knew, with sudden clarity, that the only thing that would endure would be solidarity, a sense of brotherhood. The planet itself could prove itself of undergoing particularly nasty changes. Opinions could change. Age, time, popularity, wealth, nationality – these things were immaterial. Even romance does shift its tendencies. Sandry knew, though, that a sense of humanity, of family with each other, was something that was inherited, something instinctual. 

Perhaps it would not be so with the four of them; eventually, they would die, as all people do. But Sandry knew someone would carry it on. Someone _had_ to carry it on. Every person would someday feel a sense of belonging, a sense of connection. It was in a person's blood to feel that way. 

Sandry knew that things would get accomplished through the bonds of friendship, the bonds of companionship. It was foolish to place her trust in the memories of the past, in the dead romances with dead sorcerers; Tris, Briar, and Daja were the important people she had in her life. They had already done a great deal with that friendship; so much more could be accomplished that way. 

Slowly, Sandry lifted the veil from her eyes and let the sun directly hit her face. It felt warm, soft. That garment came off quickly, shed onto the thatching, which poked her encouragingly. The gloves she tucked into her corset, and she undid her hair from its proper bun with the undoing of a single pin. It swung around her shoulder blades, wild. She would be free of him; she did not say that she would not hurt again, but she _would _be free. Sandry would learn to love again, and she would start the best way that she knew how. 

She jumped like a bird down off of the roof via the top of Rosethorn's workshop; her skirts billowed around her like a great black umbrella. Sandry, smiling contentedly, approached her friends, who watched her and smirked at her disarrayed state. 

"I always hated veils," she told them. 

Tris grinned approvingly and threw two arms around their Duchess. "So you took off the veil and let the sun kiss you again," she remarked. "I'm glad. It's such a bright day."

Sandry grinned back. "I told you – all that fancy clothing is completely pointless," Briar added. 

Daja gave a cheerful smile as well, remarking, "The pigtails will always suit you far better." Briar teased and tugged at her hair, taking her hand in his own, while Daja smothered the light-haired mage in another massive hug. 

Under the sunlight, the circle of young, lively mages laughed as they wobbled in their pile of affection. Indeed, it was a beautiful day, as the clouds parted to let the closest star of all shine on the children of the earth, the protectors of the planet, the youngest, greatest mages of all. For long, long minutes, the circle did not break apart, simply holding to each other. In fact, holding was the thing they did best. 

Where shall I go but here?

Whom else to keep so near?

I keep at my side

Four lumps all tied

And I have naught to fear.

**End.**

**AN: **Thanks a million for your support on this. I loved all the reviews I got and I hoped that it was satisfactory in the end to all. I would like to say that I have a separate story to add in a few weeks which will be a sort of epilogue to this; it continues to summarize their lives, but it really fit to end the story here, and the epilogue was just sort of awkward. So, it'll be a completely different piece! Keep your eyes open for it, because I'm quite obsessed with the ideas I have for it thus far.

Again, thanks a million for the support and for putting up with my laziness. :)


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